Following the news that high street home entertainment chain HMV going into administration, customers who have HMV gift cards were informed they could no longer use their cards in store.
However Banquet Records are offering HMV gift card holders 50% off for limited time only.
The Kingston-based independent store made the following statement:
“We’re very aware and sad that people are looking at losing their jobs, and we’re concerned about the effect HMV’s possible closure may have on physcial releases in general.” They’ve written on their website, “However, one gripe many have is the current situation where gift cards are now no longer valid at HMVs. Whatever happened, its certainly no fault of the person who got someone a Christmas gift, and its unfair on someone to not be able to use their credit.
We wanted to find a way to make these gift tokens valid at our store. But the system using an oyster-esque card, means we’ve got no way of knowing how much credit is on them. So this is the best idea we could come up with. We’ll offer anyone with an HMV gift card 50% off in our store up to and including Sunday 20th January.”
Further details can be found here.
In additional news, Manchester based company Banter Media are offering studio time in exchange for unusable HMV vouchers. For example those with a £40 voucher can use it to buy £40 worth of any studio service with Banter Media.