By John E. Schott
In December of last year, I purchased some gift certificates from (a local restaurant). Last Friday night, I went to (the restaurant now operating under new ownership) and was informed by the owner that my gift certificates would not be honored.
The owner explained to me that when they opened, they were honoring the (previous restaurant’s) gift certificates. However, as time went on, too many certificates were showing up and he decided to no longer honor them.
He went on to say that the gift certificates were discussed when the business changed hands but he has now made a decision to cut his losses by no longer taking the certificates. To me, his accountant made a huge error by not including these gift certificates as another liability on the books and include them in the transaction.
At this point, I think the certificates should be honored as a cost of doing business as opposed to the negative good will that will be generated by not taking them.
The owner tried to put the blame on the previous owner and said I needed to take up my issue with him. I have made several attempts to contact him without success. Individually, it’s not much money, but collectively, it is several thousand dollars outstanding with small consumers like me.
Needless to say, my family and I did not eat there but proceed to (a chain restaurant) instead. We were not in the mood to give any locals our business.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to recover my losses and as a public service to others in my shoes, please advise The Daily Star blog at www.hammondstar.com or me at my e-mail address, johneschott@hotmail.com.
— John E. Schott, Tickfaw
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9 comments:
I think that you should get over it. It probably advertised that it changed management and you didn't realize it. It's not the new management's responsibility to honor the gift certificate that was sold under the previous owners management. Thats like going to the Old Shoney building that's on Morrison and getting mad because the new Chinese restaurant's owners won't accept your Shoney's gift certificate.
typical Tangipahoa corruption
take from everyone, make yourself rich
the original owner stole a lot of money.....
But you have to see the new owner's side. What would stop the last owner from taking the gift cert. and giving them out to anyone as a token of his friendship or to good customers of his before he sold the business or even after.
This could be what happened and the new owner had to final say "no" when so many started coming in.
We don't know the whole story.
Which restaurant was this?
If the new owner kept the name of the previous place to use the clientel, reputation, and hard work that was put into the business by the previous owner... they should honor the gift certificates.
I don't want to give my money to someone who says he will honor the gift certificates then backs out afterwards. He is obviously not a man of his word and I do not wish to do businees with somone like that.
Why would you purchase gift certificates somewhere if you're the person that's going to be dining there?
Believe this! I'm just one of the many, many individuals who bought a gift certificate from the previous owner, who by the way, has not only a very bad attitude, but could care less if he took the general public's money and slid like a snake. It was by no means a token of his friendship, but his selfishness. He can breathe "THAT IS GOOD" here in Ponchatoula. We got taken, wake up.
Well people, the previous owner is moving out of his home in Ponchy. Does that tell you anything! Hello! He has our money and will soon have more people to pry on. I put out cold hard cash for gift certificates and got nothing in return.
Honestly, you'd have to show me the print in the paper where the previous owner said anything at all about changing management. It was not even advertised outside his business along the tracks.
It is a good thing that I didn't reserve that place for my daughter's wedding reception. This is right before they changed ownership, and of course, nobody knew about this happening.
They wanted a deposit, but we decided to hold the reception somewhere else. I feel so bad for all of you that have been taken by that man. Thank goodness I wasn't one of the many of you out there to get ripped off like that by putting up a deposit, and not getting it honored.
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