Gift Card Nightmares!

[mark.wooba]

I have an unbelievable story to tell here. I like buying Gift Cards on eBay because you sometimes get them at a nice discount. I rely on the eBay Money Back Guarantee, which appears prominently under the Buy button on gift card listings (I don't rely on PayPal with gift cards, because I know PayPal explicitly excludes gift cards from their buyer protection policy). In the small print, eBay does exclude "intangibles", but items sent by registered or trackable mail cannot be defined as intangibles.

This last month, I've been stung 4 times buying gift cards:

1) CARD ARRIVED WITH $440 MISSING CREDIT

Bought a $500 Coles gift card, but when it arrived it only had $60 credit. The PIN was still covered up. Turns out that the Seller had put a photo of the card number on the listing, so someone had taken the number, executed a brute force attack on the Coles gift card website until they got the PIN (Coles should stop this, you can execute unlimited tries with the PIN on their site, or could as of when this happened), then the thief had cloned the card with a magnetic strip reader/writer, and used $440 credit at Liquorland in SA (I am in QLD, seller in VIC).  Fortunately the seller was very nice and refunded me, and they took it up with the police, so this never became a PayPal or eBay claim.

2) SELLER USES ME FOR A CHEAP LOAN

Another seller sold me a $230 card and simply never sent it. 2 weeks later she emailed me "sorry, there is no crdit on that card and I have to refund you". The paypal refund was "pending" for 6 days, then failed. I wrote to seller asking for immediate refund. She then refunded me properly. The only explanation that fits is that she needed some money over Xmas, an interest-free short term loan, so sold a fake card to get it!

3) SELLER SELLS ME CARDS THAT NEVER ARRIVE

Another seller sold me a $400 Woollies card that simply has not arrived. It was supposedly sent by registered mail. Numerous attempts at getting the registration number for tracking purposes did not meet with success. I did get one email, via gmail, saying "I am so sorry for the problems with your purchase. I am looking into it now and will get back to you very very soon." I heard no more (that was 2 days ago). Ebay case opened, waiting for seller response, and no response after 2 days.

4) SELLER SELLS ME $1500 BUNNING GIFT CARDS, NO TRACE

Last week I bought about $1500 worth of Bunnings Gift Cards from a seller with a seemingly good feedback record. I was immediately given an Auspost Platinum Express Post reference number (next business day delivery), but 3 days later the number shows no activity on the Auspost site, the seller is not responding to messages, and it seems to have gone missing! I called Auspost and they say they have no information on that tracking number and that the sender must contact them...

Note that these purchases all happened more or less in the same time period, around Xmas and New Year, so I am now **extremely** wary of buying gift cards again on eBay.

I have yet to test whether the eBay Money Back Guarantee looks after me. I've been a member for 15 years and spent tens of thousands of dollars through eBay, so we'll see how they look after me. I would not have thought items sent via registered post, and clearly not sent (no tracking), could be written off as "intangibles". And there are legal implications to putting the "eBay Money Back Guarantee" logo under the "Buy" button on a listing, I am told (my son is a lawyer). So we'll see.

Comments welcome...

[mark.wooba]

As I said, auctions sometimes result in rash purchases. Postage is generally included. Overall, I've saved money. Bought some gift cards for 20% less than face value ....

[2011.narelle]

You have noted several bad transactions for face & above face value gift cards.Seems it would be easier & safer to cut out the middleman ebay seller who may not be reliable & just buy them yourself?

You already noted the loophole for refunds.Do you think it may open a can of worms?

If there is easy profit to be made selling them,why do you not sell them?

Hold that thought,i have to go to woolies.I really do.

[mark.wooba]

I think after this, I WILL NOT BUY GIFT CARDS AGAIN on eBay. So I agree with you.

The discounts you (usually) get are not worth the hassle.

[mark.wooba]

Another development in Case #3 above: it's pure fraud. I spoke to the Woolworths Gift Card section. She reported that this card was bought online and mailed to the Seller (same name and address). She told me that the card was CANCELLED on 17 December 2014 (before the item was listed) because payment did not clear. Payment bounced. That can be ascertained directly from Woolworths. This seller is a conman and a crook and has illegally sold a cancelled card online via eBay. This is a clear case of fraud. Seller's account should be suspended immediately IMO. Police may get involved ... in the US this is called Wire Fraud.

[lyndal1838]

Only you can get the police involved as you are the one who has been defrauded.

Get a Police Incident number and that will go a long way in any communications with ebay and paypal.

[polly.the.cat]

At a Girl,......Go Girls !!!!!!!

[2011.narelle]

The OP has made quite a few refund claims & I suspect may be out of protection & may have to fend for himself.I don't know if it is number of claims or if there is a dollar amount but there is a claim cutoff point.The buyer may bluff the seller into refunding & the seller will assume that he/she will have to refund so just obliges.The seller will have no idea that the buyer has run out

If the OP can not get another refund he may have a hard time persuading the seller to volunteer to repay the purchase as happened in case 1.

I did ask the OP the purpose of the thread since there was no question,just a list of cases & noting how a refund was available.I did not see a purpose to the thread & it did not make sense to me.Nor did the updates.The OP has a long history of unhappy purchases & shouldn't need help in knowing what to do for a case.

I hope OP did not set up this thread to persuade/bluff a case to those sellers in obtaining refunds.I wondered what the purpose of pointing out his son is a lawyer.

The only way i saw that a gift card purchase would be refunded would be if the buyer claimed unauthorized  use or a hacked account.There are only a certain amount of times that this can be used without looking suspicious.Did anyone even check the eBay refund fact?

[lyndal1838]

Narelle, I checked the paypal T & C last night after the OP posted that paypal has stated that they do cover Gift Cards....my comment still stands....the OP was lucky to strike a paypal rep who does not know that Gift cards are not covered.

[mark.wooba]

Narelle, what garbage! I have not had a PayPal or eBay refund for a long time. The last time was in 2012 when something I bought from the US disappeared at the eBay shipping center inside the US (as far as I can remember).

I've never heard of being beyond a "cutoff point" -- where do you get this nonsense?

In case #4, the $1500 case, the funds have not cleared from PayPal to the seller's bank account. It's all still there. So drawing on PayPal guarantee money won't even be necessary.

PayPal has been very reassuring to me that unless the seller in that case produces documentary proof that the items were mailed and received, which he obviously cannot, the money will be returned to me. I checked that again today with yet another CSR.

The purpose of the thread, an issue which seems to obsess you (I wonder why?), was twofold:

1) Get feedback on gift card experiences (unfortunately nobody else has come forward yet, although there are some cases in the archives) and find out what refund limitations there may be with both PP and eBay; and

2) Warn others about the problems unsuspecting buyers can have with gift cards.

I've bought over 800 items on eBay over the years, I'd guess (not all sellers leave feedback so that is not reflected in my score), and been a member for 15 years, putting up to $10k a year in purchases through eBay, but these gift card purchases have been the very worst experiences, by far. I'd like others to know that.

I only pointed out my son is a lawyer to let others know that once you emblazon a sales page with a money back guarantee logo, that has certain implications. He's well versed in Australian consumer law. So the opinion carries some weight ... it's not just me speaking.

When you say I have a long history of unhappy purchases, that's bulldust. I reckon just a few percent have gone really bad, but I do leave neutral feedback for long delays in shipping, for instance.

In summary, your bitter "shoot the messenger" sniping in this thread is extremely unwelcome. If it continues I will not update the thread again. I can do without the extra stress and hassle of dealing with internet trolls on this forum.

[mark.wooba]

And Narelle, before you go running off to gather "evidence" from my purchase history, please note that whatever refunds I got over the last few years were with the agreement of the sellers' themselves, and all were for low $ amounts. PayPal has only had to pay out to me, over the last 15 years, less than $100 by my estimation (the cases I'm thinking of involved sellers who were totally fraudulent and subsequently banned). This $1500 Bunnings card purchase is one of the largest, if not the largest, purchase I have made on eBay. Just my luck the seller is dodgy.