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Climate bonus: Vouchers unusable

A woman from Lower Austria received the 2023 climate bonus in the form of Sodexho vouchers. When she tried to redeem them directly at the post office, it turned out that vouchers worth forty euros were faulty and therefore unusable. Attempts to redeem the vouchers at other post offices or retail outlets failed. Telephone enquiries and email submissions to the Ministry of Climate Protection were not answered or not answered in detail, which is why the woman finally complained to the Austrian Ombudsman Board. Ombudsman Walter Rosenkranz arranged for the case to be investigated.

The Ministry of Climate Protection apologised for the inconvenience and acknowledged production errors with some vouchers, but pointed out that only the barcode was printed incompletely. However, the voucher could have been redeemed by entering the numerical code. After returning the faulty vouchers to the ministry, the ministry transferred the amount to the woman's bank account.

Translation was AI-generated

Illustration of a climate bonus voucher