Customers of a major voucher scheme fear their tokens are worth nothing after restaurants refused to take them and the company stopped answering calls.
Gourmet Guide claims to have more than 2,000 of the best restaurants on its books – but some listed say they have never heard of it.
For weeks its website has been displaying a notice saying there is an ‘upgrade in progress’, with no way for customers to redeem their tokens. The company is still selling vouchers worth up to £500.
The owner of the firm claimed he was introducing a new business model and tokens were being moved on to a different system.
But one customer wrote online: ‘Unable to redeem. I phoned the number given on their site.
‘It just gives you an email address which comes back saying they’re updating their site.’
Another wrote on website Trustpilot: ‘Terrible. Was bought a £100 voucher by my son and we cannot redeem. We have tried every number available to ring, we have also written to the address – letter returned with address not available.’
Others said they had contacted restaurants which said they were not taking the coupons – or were not signed up to the scheme.
Customers are finding they cannot redeem their Gourmet Guide vouchers after restaurants have refused them, with some businesses saying they never realised they were one of 2,000 on the scheme
Fuller, Smith and Turner, owner of Bel and the Dragon pub in Cookham, Berkshire, which is listed on the website, told the Mail: ‘We are not part of the Gourmet Guide scheme and are unaware if we ever were… we will be attempting to make contact and get ourselves removed.’
Attempts to redeem vouchers, which are valid for 12 months, are met with a message stating the company is carrying out an upgrade to both the website and the office system. It apologises for ‘any disruption’ caused.
Gourmet Guide was set up in 2016 by entrepreneurial brothers Tom and Pete Warsop before they sold it to Vouchers Group Ltd, run by businessman Jef Richards, for an undisclosed sum earlier this year.
Tom Warsop told the Mail: ‘I’ve seen myself that since the new owners have had it, there’s clearly been something going wrong.’
Gourmet Guide was acquired this year by Vouchers Group Ltd, which is run by businessman Jef Richards (pictured)
At his Staffordshire semi-detached home, which has a Porsche on the drive, Mr Richards, 51, insisted people would be able to redeem their vouchers.
He said: ‘We are in the process of moving the old vouchers on to the new system. I would just ask people to bear with us. We are swamped at the moment coming up to Christmas but we are doing as much as we can as quickly as we can.’
Customers said they had reported the matter to Staffordshire Trading Standards, although the watchdog declined to confirm the status of any probe.
