Budget Golf Customer Service

mulliganman30 · March 31, 2017

I have normally been extremely satisfied with customer service with Budget but have encountered my first issue and wondering if anyone else has had any similar experiences? And if so, did you get it resolved favorably?

Here's what happened: Prior to Christmas, Budget ran a promo where for every $100 in gift cards you bought you were to receive a bonus $25 gift card (the bonus cards that were supposed to come had to be used by a certain date). For whatever reason, every time I tried to purchase three cards whether using my own account or with my spouse's account, their online payment processor would decline the payment and the order get cancelled. I was only attempting to successfully order three from either account. I believe I was finally told to buy one $100 card at a time through paypal before I was finally able to order (so three $100 cards on three separate orders). The bonus cards never came so I emailed Budget's customer service. I received the following response via email:

Thank you for both paying with PayPal and for choosing Budget Golf. We owe you 75 dollars in free gift cards, since you placed 3

separate orders for 100 dollars gift cards. What we did is made you a unique coupon code for 75 dollars. On your next

purchase, please enter this code into the redeem a coupon code field . The code is _______ all lowercase letters, and no spaces. Thanks!!!

--Budget Golf Assistant Customer Service Manager (I'm omitting the name at least for the time being).

So, I am thinking great that they did the right thing and honored the deal. I assumed the code would be good anytime since the response I got said "on your next purchase" with no timeframe given for using it. Fast forward to yesterday and when I tried to plugin the code on an order I am getting a message that the code isn't valid. So, I reached out to the same individual with this message:

Hi. I wanted to follow up with you on this. I was trying this out to make sure it was still good but I am getting an error message on the website with it. It doesn't seem to recognize the code. I was wondering if you could check the details and let me know what the problem seems to be since I haven't used it. Look forward to hearing back! Thanks!

Here is the reply I got:

As the promotion stated, the free gift cards we sent expired 1 month ago. These expired at the end of February. Sorry we could not assist in this matter.

--Budget Golf Assistant Customer Service Manager (I'm omitting the name at least for the time being).

I of course followed up asking if there was not anything that could be done about this since the bonus I got was not gift cards but instead a code for the total value of what the bonus cards would be ($75) and his response to the first problem with ordering did not indicate in the email it needed to be used by a certain time frame. But, I haven't gotten a response back.

Am I wrong in my interpretation of this and thinking they should be honoring this for me? Anyone with similar experiences with them?

ajschn06 · March 31, 2017

Am I wrong in my interpretation of this and thinking they should be honoring this for me? Anyone with similar experiences with them?

There is no way I would let this go without getting the $75 in gift cards I was entitled- especially considering there was a delay in receiving your code.

Slagathor · March 31, 2017

I would not be too happy with the execution and communication on this one from Budget. Sorry to hear they are not being more accommodating.

brkuck · March 31, 2017

That sucks. They probably assumed that you would know to use them in the promo period even though they made the special code and not the gift cards. If thats what it was, they should have told you and not assumed you would know.

golf0101 · March 31, 2017

I also had an issue with that promo with them. I purchased the gift cards thinking it would be actual bonus gift cards provided to me that I could use because it didn't say otherwise when they provided the promo but they also provided me with that code and it was excluded from so many items I had a hard time finding something to use it on. Never again.

HighSpeedScene · March 31, 2017

But,you knew the deal originally had that timeframe?

mulliganman30 · March 31, 2017

Update: Decided to call them today. When I explained to the woman who answered she put me on hold and started to tell me the same thing that they had an expiration with them. I had to go back on forth with them several times after pointing out my only email correspondence on it made it sound like they provided me the code as an alternative to the bonus gift cards and did not mention to be sure and use it before a certain date. It really left a bad taste with them considering how much business I have given them and part of the issue here is a communication issue on their part. It appears they assumed the same stipulations as what the bonus gift cards would be without explicitly sharing that with me. I'm pretty certain that had I not called them about this they would have never responded to my last email based on the way things went when I called back. I dunno it just bugs me because I walked away after the phone call coming away making me feel like I did something wrong here. In the end though, they did provide a new code for the same value as the previous one but said it will expire in a month. Haven't tried it yet but I plan to try to use it right away given the whole experience. Really makes me hesitant to use them and worried how things will be handled where maybe things don't seem as clear cut.

I appreciate those who commented here. I was reluctant to post this but really wanted to make sure I wasn't interpreting my original message from them differently than anyone else would have taken it.

To golf001, it appears from my conversation with them today that it seemed like most if not of all of their fulfillments from that promotion was done with promotion codes instead of bonus gift cards. I don't know what they use to process payments but I still can't use the "credit card" payment option on their website. Every time I do my payment is declined. I can only place online orders with any card using Paypal. Only thing about that is that you can't use one of their gift certificates and still pay with paypal. You can enter a gift certificate and then chose "phone" to pay for the rest of the order. You just have to call in to pay the balance. Kind of annoying.

mulliganman30 · March 31, 2017

But,you knew the deal originally had that timeframe?

The original deal said the bonus gift cards had a timeframe to be used. I pasted word for word the only correspondence I got from them when I asked about the missing bonus gift cards. Pasting the whole thing was so others could see how they would have read and interpreted it.

mulliganman30 · March 31, 2017

That sucks. They probably assumed that you would know to use them in the promo period even though they made the special code and not the gift cards. If thats what it was, they should have told you and not assumed you would know.

This for sure. I think another thing is they were equating "gift cards" and "coupon codes" as one and the same. I've attached the email contents of the original email

HighSpeedScene · March 31, 2017

But,you knew the deal originally had that timeframe?

The original deal said the bonus gift cards had a timeframe to be used. I pasted word for word the only correspondence I got from them when I asked about the missing bonus gift cards. Pasting the whole thing was so others could see how they would have read and interpreted it.

Why would the deal have been different in your case? The plastic card part?

golf0101 · March 31, 2017

The original email clearly says buy an egift card get a free egift card, it does not say buy an egift card get a code. There is a big difference as the codes are excluded from most new clubs and you can get a code whenever they have a sale. Not a big deal but just seems kind of shady.

mulliganman30 · March 31, 2017

But,you knew the deal originally had that timeframe?

The original deal said the bonus gift cards had a timeframe to be used. I pasted word for word the only correspondence I got from them when I asked about the missing bonus gift cards. Pasting the whole thing was so others could see how they would have read and interpreted it.

Why would the deal have been different in your case? The plastic card part?

There was never a plastic card. It was supposed to be an e-gift card as the email details I posted showed. Since they made a coupon code instead of sending an e-gift card like the offer said and then used the phrase "use on your next order" without indicating a clear time frame of when that needed to be caused the confusion. The original details if you clicked through indicated the bonus e-gift cards needed to be used by a certain date. I also get golf101's point too because a gift card can be used on anything as it is cash equivalent. A coupon code is completely different and subject to restrictions.

HighSpeedScene · March 31, 2017

Do you know the code you got won't work on some stuff?

Look, all I'm saying is that you got what you were supposed to, and they held you to the terms of the deal.

So a guy that fixed your problem was careless in his wording and you think you are owed something. I find it silly. And since you asked for opinions, that's mine.

eagle1997 · March 31, 2017

Do you read what you type?

"In the end though, they did provide a new code for the same value as the previous one."

You got your code. Stop b!tchin on here about the "hassle" it took to get it (a friggin phone call is such a hassle these days?) and just use it and be happy and enjoy life. FFS.

mulliganman30 · April 1, 2017

Do you read what you type?

"In the end though, they did provide a new code for the same value as the previous one."

You got your code. Stop b!tchin on here about the "hassle" it took to get it (a friggin phone call is such a hassle these days?) and just use it and be happy and enjoy life. FFS.

Well, you certainly are a piece of work. I'm not bitching on here about anything. My intent was to update at post 7, but then highspeedscene asked some questions so I followed up. And FWIW, I never used the word "hassle" about having to call in.

mulliganman30 · April 1, 2017

Do you know the code you got won't work on some stuff?

Look, all I'm saying is that you got what you were supposed to, and they held you to the terms of the deal.

So a guy that fixed your problem was careless in his wording and you think you are owed something. I find it silly. And since you asked for opinions, that's mine.

No I do not know it won't work on some stuff.. The only reason I made mention of that is it was news to me after golf0101 said something about it. That and to clarify the differences between e-gift card and coupon code.

We are going to have to agree to disagree somewhat on this. When the offer was fulfilled with a coupon code instead of the egift card and the wording of it when explaining what was going to be done ALLOWED for misinterpretation to occur. The wording resulted in me misinterpreting the intent that wasn't clearly laid out when they had to take alternative methods to try to fulfill the deal. I also believed I was the only one affected by this since I had been having difficulty placing orders with them but after reading golf0101's account it appears it was a bit more widespread. Meaning I thought they were basically using an exception to fulfill the deal since i was having so much trouble placing the order. That also contributed to my interpretation.

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. But it also illustrates why I was even hesitant to post this and ask if anyone else would have interpreted the offer in the same manner. That's because you almost always guarantee there are some smartWord not allowed or two who respond in these type of threads always jumping in the thread starter. I was sincere in my request for others view of the situation and one can give a view without being insulting and a smartWord not allowed in the process.

In the end, I'm sorry you find it silly. I do think $75 is a pretty big deal . I did have someone from Budget reach out to me here so big kudos to them. This thread needs to probably be closed and/or locked at this point.