City Deals Goes Under

Yesterday, Wednesday August 31st, City Deals went under after a deal to buy them out, fell through. Since then they have just been refusing to talk to the general public. Theories are abounding, but one thing is for sure... this is pretty much leaving everyone screwed over!

Merchants, at least most of them, haven't been paid. Customers aren't getting refunded. And No-One is accepting City Deal vouchers now.

My brother and sister-in-law recently purchased a new home, and through City Deals acquired vouchers that would make going through their brand new home and having all the carpets cleaned affordable! However, when they saw the news that City Deals went under they immediately called the Cleaning company and asked if they would take the voucher still.

The man was very nice and basically stated that because they hadn't been paid by City deals, they couldn't just accept the voucher, BUT if she could provide proof of purchase (the receipt from City Deals) and the voucher itself, that he would honor the value of they would pay him the amount they paid to City Deals.

My sister-in-law is going to talk to her bank about the transaction to City Deals and see if there is any way that she can dispute the charge or have it reversed. If so, both she and the Carpet Cleaners will be able to come out of this with little to no loss. If the bank can't do anything about it, then she still has the option of paying only a little to the cleaners to have them honor the full amount of the voucher.

If you have a City Deals Voucher that you have yet to redeem, I'd suggest calling the merchant that the voucher is for, and seeing if there is anything you can work out.

Most of all, remember that when talking to a merchant, it is not their fault and they have lost money on this as well. Some merchants will literally hundreds of dollars (some close to thousands) if they honored all the vouchers. So be curious, and soft spoken. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar after all. - You could even ask them how much they were supposed to get from City Deals for that voucher and see if they would take that much for it?

If anyone has other tips or ideas for fellow users of City Deals that they would like to share, please post your comments here.


Thanks to: http://www.sltrib.com and http://consumerist.com for the info that I gathered from them.