WH Smiths Vouchers Officially Suck

Christmas shopping trip today. It was fun. Saw a movie, had fun with my mates.

But WH Smiths fobbed me out of £91. That's right: nine - one. Ninety one. £91.

You know how relatives insist on giving vouchers for certain shops instead of cash? So you end up with a backlog of book vouchers and WH Smith gift cards that you never spend and just end up going out of date? Also, my old school used WH Smith vouchers as the rewards on prize day (because obviously you can't give money to an 8 year-old: they might go and buy drugs *shock horror*).

Well I had a lot of those. I was quite good at spending them on books and stuff, but I still ended up with millions of them. So I thought I'd do something really useful. I took [i]all[/i] the vouchers I had left to the WH Smith in my town, and got them all put on one [i]new[/i] card. I got a receipt with it (very careful about that one), and they said that I could use it anywhere, quite happily, it would all be there, perfectly safe.

So I went to the shopping centre with my mates to do our Christmas shopping. Went round all the shops, being a little easier with my cash than I normally would be, knowing that I could buy all my presents from WH Smith with the £91 voucher (CDs, books, cards, calendars, the lot). I'd only bought 1 game (£20), and I had about £30 left in cash.

So I get all my stuff - 4 CDs for various relatives, loads of cards, a couple of books for various people, two calendars, and a DVD. I'd worked it out - it fitted into £91 - just.

I got to the till (after a fairly long wait - I mean, at least they could employ people intelligent enough to use a Goddamn till - IT'S NOT HARD), and handed the stuff over. It fitted in my £91 budget, and I handed the card over.


"Oh, I'm sorry, we can't accept those today?" (I'm translating a bit here from whatever corrupt dialect of English he was speaking).
"What do you mean you can't accept it?
"Well, if you come in tomorrow, you'll be fine. We're just not accepting them instore today."
"Why?"
"Hang on, I'll check *goes off to check with manager or whoever* Nope, sorry, not today. Tomorrow will be fine."


WELL I'M NOT FRICKING THERE TOMORROW!!!! I'M THERE TODAY!!! And I'll tell you why it was SO annoying. Because in order to buy just 2 of the things I was wanting to buy (which I wouldn't be able to buy anywhere else), I had to use up my remaining £30 cash. Which meant I had no money for lunch, cinema or getting home. Which left me leeching off my friends for the rest of the day. Not fantastic.




ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR. OK, I haven't had a moan for a while. But I just needed to rant it out. Grrrrr... Ever happened to you?