Did you get a £10 House of Fraser voucher from Barclay card earlier this month if you are a Barclaycard account holder? I did - and I know others that did, but I also know plenty that didn’t so we’re not sure by what criteria they gave the vouchers out.

But anyway - when it arrived in the post it seemed to good to be true! £10 to spend in House of Fraser, no strings attached… even when you read the small print… admittedly House of Fraser isn’t a cheap shop, but still you’d be able to get something for a tenner. It wasn’t a complete con to get you to spend money like it would have been if it was a £5 voucher.

However, a friend of mine discovered the hitch.

He went to spend his voucher during July and when he got to the checkout was informed that his voucher wasn’t valid for his purchase because he was buying a sale item and sale items were not included in the promotion. Not a problem he figured - he’d just pick something else. Except everything else was in the sale too. He found 1 washing machine in Bristol’s Cabot Circus House of Fraser that he could have used his voucher on.

So - when did the sale end, he asked a shop assistant.

Ends up the sale ends around the 28th/29th of July. And the voucher expires on the 3rd August. And the sale had been going for the majority of the July - for most of the time since the vouchers had been issued.

So there was the catch. You’re given a voucher with a long lifespan - only to find there’s a small window when it’s actually valid. I wasn’t letting them get away with it though - I made sure I went to House of Fraser on the 2nd August and redeemed my voucher against a very nice recipe folder from Paperchase (which I can’t find on their website otherwise I’d show you).

So - everyone with a Barclaycard/House of Fraser voucher - make sure you redeem it at the right time! Don’t let them get around us with a almost-hollow gesture - get your £10 worth!

Being a clever shopper is about more than finding a good deal - it’s about making sure you get the deal you asked for, and watching that it stays like that.

Our phone bill had been sky high lately - and we didn’t really know why - so when we moved, I went on the war path with BT to get the best deals possible.

I finally got my broadband for £7.33 a month - I was promised this in a phone call and then was later told it wasn’t possible - but I stuck to my guns (I’d been promised it when I threatened to move to Carphone Warehouse) and the operator reluctantly went to her manager and got authorisation.

I also changed package to the Unlimited Anytime Plan, which on their shiny (new in places) website, offers “unlimited calls to UK landlines at any time” for £4.95pm. I’d been through all this before the move - but after the move it hadn’t been put into place/I didn’t receive the call back that I was told I would get, so I rang up and had to go through it all again.

Anywho, today I logged into our BT account to check everything was set up as it should be, and found we were actually being charged £5.95pm for our Unlimited Anytime Plan! Ok, so that’s only £12 a year - but it all adds up, and give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. This is how phone bills creep up.

I rang BT and was told that if I was happy to sign up to the Unlimited Anytime Plan for 12 months, I could get it at £4.95. Well, we’ve had to sign up to the phone line for 12 months, so we’d been resigned to the fact all along that we’d sign up to whatever got us the best deal for that long too. Bit of a gamble, as offers change - but £4.95 for unlimited calls was pretty good so we were willing to go with it.

So I now (apparently) have BT Unlimited Anytime Plan for 12 months for £4.95pm. But why wasn’t I told about the price difference when I ordered it? I categorically requested - and was told I’d got - the package for £4.95. I honestly can’t remember if I agreed to 12 months to get it for £4.95, or if that wasn’t mentioned. But I absolutely definately repeatedly reiterated the fact that what I wanted was £4.95 and they confirmed that to me more than once in the phone call. So whether they didn’t link the 12 month deal to my account by accident or otherwise, if I hadn’t have checked, I’d have been paying more than I’d agreed to. So check check and double check that the superdooper offer you see on the website or are promised over the phone is actually what you end up paying!

Also - I have a new theory when calling BT - they now ask if you’d be willing to do a customer survey after your call. Once this morning I pressed “No” - and got a bad line, with a quiet voice on the end which hung up after a couple of seconds. So I rang back and pressed “Yes” and got a much better line, with a very helpful voice that spoke good English.

Finally - on the note of BT - I made a complaint last week after all of the things I’d set up the week before not having happened and me having to do them all again. And I specifically ticked the box to say I’d like my complaint to be responded to by email. A couple of hours later I got a phone call. Great that they followed it up - but come on! If someone complains shouldn’t you make extra sure you respond to them how they asked to be responded to? Why ask if you don’t take any notice of it?!

BT rant over (temporarily).