A MUM was left shocked after Iceland refused to accept her £75 school voucher – leaving her humiliated.
Dee Stringer, 30, says that she visited the supermarket chain with a unused food voucher that staff wrongly scanned before telling her it had already been redeemed.
The mum-of-three visited the Iceland in Colchester on July 11 with two of her children, hoping to use a free voucher provided by her child's school.
Dee had received £75 for each of her kids for the summer holidays and claims she had no problem in previously redeeming the vouchers at other chains such as Aldi and Tesco.
But what should have been an simple shopping trip soon turned into a "incredibly stressful" and "embarrassing" experience.
"I had done the voucher, double-checked it and it said there was £75 on it. There were no issues.
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"I went round to the till and told the person there in advance that I wanted to use a voucher.
"He said he didn't know how to do the voucher but would get somebody who could."
That's when things started unravelling for Deanne as she added: "Instead of getting someone, he tried to scan the voucher pressing a lot of buttons but couldn't get it to work."
Someone else was then called before an increasingly stressed out Dee was told that they still could not get the voucher to work.
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Eventually the manager came over and according to Dee, said "that the voucher balance was now showing as zero".
A stunned Dee asked him how that could be possible when she walked into Iceland with a total of £75 on it.
At the same time these issues were happening, a frustrated Dee was looking after her son, 12, and daughter, 6, in the supermarket.
The full-time carer insists that she had never used the voucher before and was then forced to pay for her £68 shopping out of her own pocket.
She said: "My children are autistic and screaming because they don't know any better, they don't understand what is going on.
"Every other time I've used a voucher it's been very simple. It was destroying having that done in front of everyone.
"The staff could see that my situation was difficult but they were just not helpful at all.
"My shopping had come to £68 and I had two screaming kids and a massive queue behind me so I decided to just pay for my shopping.
"I was told that if I rang the voucher company they would be able to reload it for me."
After driving home and ringing CashStar – the company who provided the voucher -the mum claims that she was told that the voucher was "loaded and spent at Iceland".
Cashstar told Dee: "Once the voucher has been issued it is not up to us.
"We have loaded the voucher on with the money and Iceland have taken the money as shown by the transaction ID."
Dee claims she told Cashstar she didn't spend it and says they gave her a transaction ID which would help Iceland to reload the voucher.
'EMBARRASSING AND STRESSFUL'
The mum returned to the store again that same day and claims that when she initially requested to speak to the manager, she was told multiple times that "he was busy".
Already frustrated from earlier Dee said the staff embarassed her further by "trying to move me out of the way so customers couldn't see me".
She adds: "When I had CashStar on the phone on loudspeaker they were being very unhelpful about it all."
Eventually she did manage to speak the manager only to be told that "he can't just reload it".
And the mum even claims that the store manager unhelpfully told her the situation was her fault.
Despite the ordeal, Dee says that she is grateful that she did have the money to cover the unpredicted expenses.
"It's been backwards and forwards non-stop and it's not even disappeared.
"Iceland have said that they have got it, they just aren't sure if they can give it back.
"I'm lucky I did have the money to cover it but a lot of parents wouldn't have had the means to do that. It was extremely embarrassing and stressful."
According to Dee, she was then told that the staff member who handled her situation had made a mistake.
He had put the voucher through as a transaction before charging her shopping as a separate transaction.
But despite the mistake, Dee claims Iceland staff at the store said they couldn't do anything to help or refund it and suggested she contact customer services.
After multiple attempts, the mum said that she finally managed to get through to Iceland customer services on July 18 after "jumping through a number of hoops".
Dee says that she was promised that the situation would be sorted within two days but never got a call back.
She alleges that she called Iceland customer services back twice since where she was told the voucher has not been restored and it is still with the "accounting team".
Almost a month later on August 13, Dee claims she called again in a desperate bid to try and resolve the situation but the lady on the phone told her "she doesn't know what to do".
'RIDICULOUS'
Dee said: "They said that they could see the voucher was used after my transaction that day.
"The person on the phone confirmed that the voucher was taken by the till but not deducted off my shopping and instead deducted off another person's shop.
"I was told they won't be able to do anything about it and that I should have reported it earlier, despite them having a month to investigate, it's ridiculous."
She added: "It's frustrating to see it all get wiped out. I've had a really hard time with the whole situation which has caused a lot unnecessary stress to me and my kids.
"For me it's more the principle that it's a school voucher for kids. It's not any type of voucher, it's a school one.
"They've got the voucher and the £68 on top so they aren't out of pocket. It's not a priority for them but it is for me and my family.
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"Tesco and Asda were very easy, I've even used it at Aldi with no problems, I won't be coming back to Iceland."
The Sun have approached Iceland and CashStar for comment.
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