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...

[2011.narelle]

How is asking a question being a troll? Usually a troll will have 0fb to be anonymous.I

There are threads  about gift certificate problems easily found if you type in gift cards if you type in gift cards advanced search.

There are many many threads with people asking why buyers pay over the face value for them & it took me a lot of google searching to find out the popularity of purchasing gift cards.I do not want to post what i think of that.I left that alsone in my post & will continue to do so.

28 negs 30 neutrals 6 withdrawn feedback is more than a couple of problems & refunds.

The refernence to being suspended from ebay MBG from excessive claims is in the user agreement,it's not made up by me & you may check that.Your son is a lawyer so I'm sure he has found that part without me having to post a link.

Something doesn't make sense,i ask questions.

Buying gift cards at face value or above does not make a lot of sense to most.

[2011.narelle]

I don't need to run off to gather evidence on your purchase history.

A 10 sec visit to toolhaus was very quick & easy.I looked at it the 1st day you posted.

[mark.wooba]

754 buys and 23 negs? That's 3% negatives, which is exactly what I said above ("a few percent"). I would also guess that that is pretty typical for eBay buyers. I'm done with you, Narelle. I also think posting here is becoming worthless for me. I've made my point, which is to warn about gift cards. That's enough for me.

[mark.wooba]

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@2011.narelle wrote:

Buying gift cards at face value or above does not make a lot of sense to most.

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Last reply to you: the Bunnings gift cards I bought (case #4 above):

17 x $100 gift cards. Value $1700

I paid $1,529.83

I'm sure this doesn't make sense to you, but it does to me. The few times I paid a little over the odds were auctions were I didn't feel like losing. So sue me. (rolls eyes)

[zelly888]

Is this another one of those get rich quick schemes???

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@mark.wooba wrote:
754 buys and 23 negs? That's 3% negatives, which is exactly what I said above ("a few percent"). I would also guess that that is pretty typical for eBay buyers. I'm done with you, Narelle. I also think posting here is becoming worthless for me. I've made my point, which is to warn about gift cards. That's enough for me.

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I don't think that 3% negatives is typical for eBay buyers, I would think that very few eBay buyers would give 3% neg feedback.

I must say, that I have around the same number of 'buys' as you, spread over 3 IDs, and I have not left a negative yet.  There have been some sellers who I have chosen to not leave feedback for, but I wouldn't have left them negatives had I left them feedback.

[mc*muffin]

 So why do people buy gift cards at a higher price than from the shop that actually sells them?No-one answered that.There are iTunes cards valued at $50 price at $74.95 etc.

I suppose it's a better deal that a $100 empty PS4 box.

[imastawka]

My guess would be that they live in a remote area. and

can't get to a store that sells them.   They perhaps want to

buy them as gifts for relatives??

[kopenhagen5]

Exactly stawks, there are also people whom don't have time to go to stores or can't be bothered.

I know I buy more small items online now so I don't need to find a park then find the store and deal with the crowds in shopping centres.

[mark.wooba]

Yes, it is strange. I saw a $500 Coles card sell for $570. I was amazed. People go a bit crazy with auctions.

I do live remotely (rural village) and combined with the great prices I've sometimes been able to get, it's usually made sense.

But I now think there are too many "gotchas" with gift cards. Won't be buying more.