Never ever buy gift vouchers.

Never ever, ever buy gift vouchers or book tokens. 30% of gift vouchers are never cashed. Most gift vouchers have an expiry date of between 6 and 12 months, but if the retailer who issues them has old stock they can be expired before you walk out of the door.

I was treated like a criminal because I tried to use £50 worth of gift vouchers I won in a competition in work. I was trying to spend them before they expired. After spending hours on the telephone I was told that because of fraud I needed to write a letter to get issued new vouchers.

Most issuers of vouchers don't do refunds or replace expired vouchers. This is corporate theft as far as I can see. I had £20 of vouchers from Capital Bonds that were short dated. I did not know where I could spend them until it was too late. When I contacted them I was told "We don't reissue or honour expired vouchers". We need a change in the law or at least someone to make a test case.