A voucher to vouch for

A reminder popped up on my Outlook last week. "Return Regency Warranty certificate" it said.

When we bought a pair of sofas for our new house in 2002 we opted for the stain protection service. This came with a five-year guarantee which had an unusual (or so I thought) clause. If you didn't make a claim during that five years then you were eligible for the return of the cost of stain protection (£59 in fact) provided you returned the original certificate within 30 days of the anniversary date. I guess the company reckons on most people not being sufficiently organised to be able to comply with those terms. Not me. I entered an Outlook reminder right away and filed the certificate away.

Five years later and here we are. The anniversary falls due on Friday and I'm ready to go. Not that I'm holding out any hopes of actually getting my money back. Since the original warranty was taken out the company has changed its name three times (although still trading from the same address) and I've found at least one reference on the Net to someone who fulfilled all the criteria and was still refused their money back on a technicality. Still, if you don't try, you don't win, so we'll see what happens.