The parent company of the Australian Borders chain (no relation to the US chain) went into administration (the Australian equivalent of bankruptcy) yesterday. Redgroup Retail then decided to go for double or nothing by pissing off the few customers they have left.
They've changed their policy on gift cards, and the change is probably illegal. According to the Canberra Times:
The booksellers have instructed staff to require customers spend double the total value of the certificates, just a day after insiders at the company told BusinessDay that the vouchers would likely to be honoured pending the administrators Ferrier Hodgson's final decision.
Angus & Robertson, another part of the failed REDgroup owners, are also demanding customers spend twice the amount on the voucher. The demands are confirmed on both booksellers' websites.
Double, can you beleive it?
RedGroup just guaranteed the death of their company. The people who have gift cards from a bookstore generally buy a lot of books. After this, they won't be buying them from any of Redgroup's stores (Borders, Angus & Robertson, Whitcoullls).
via Oz-E-Books
image via Flickr
This is actually a common bankruptcy practice. The Sharper Image pulled the same thing when they went bankrupt:
I missed that one. Interesting.
It was only a week ago that we took our 7-year-old to spend his birthday book vouchers. We thought about waiting til this weekend because we had a busy couple of days ahead, but decided to go Friday night. I’m so gald we did.