Hi all, sorry this is a little long, but below is a copy of the complaint against giftcardmall (the one who recently sold all those staples $100 gift cards on ebay for only $85) that I have filed with the Federal Trade Commission. If anyone has had a similar issue with them I woul like to know. Thank you.
Giftcardmall.com is the largest provider of third party gift cards in the United States and Canada. They sell gift cards on their website and through the ebay website. On September 1, 2014, giftcardmall ran a sale on ebay selling $100 staples gift cards for only $85. (ebay item # 261585109626). This was an ebay daily deal and the purchase was limited to 2 per ebay user ID. Having 3 different ebay user ID's, I purchased a total of 6 staples gift cards (3 orders of 2 gift cards, paying $170 three times).
Around a week later, I received all the gift cards with a paper saying they were each worth $100 and "the card is active". (I still have the gift cards and paper in case you need a copy of it). I was going to save the gift cards for holiday shopping, but around a week later I saw something on sale and staples and decided to use the gift cards to purchase it. However, when I tried to make the purchases at staples, they said that every one of the gift cards had no value on it. I then called up Giftcardmall and the customer service representative told me my orders had been cancelled because I ordered more cards than the limit of 2. I then filed a complaint thru ebay on October 1 and giftcarmall responded as follows "Hello, Thank you for your inquiry. We would like to confirm that this order has been canceled. We will process a refund which will show up as a credit in your PayPal account. You should receive credit within 2-3 business days. Your Reference Number is XXXXXXXXXXXX. We appreciate your business and are happy to assist you with your concerns. Sincerely, Gift Card Mall". I got this same response to all 3 of my orders.
On October 7, I received a refund for $170 for one of the 3 purchases. I received no refund from the company for the other 2 purchases and on October 19, I filed a complaint with ebay regarding the other 2 purchases. On October 21, ebay refunded my money for the other 2 purchases.
I am filing this complaint because I believe this company is purposely trying to defraud customers. First of all, if as they claim they canceled my order, why did they send gift cards that said they were activated and then not contact me telling me that they had cancelled my order. Had I saved the gift cards to use at the holidays, it would have been to late to file a complaint with ebay and my credit card company and I would have lost my money (that is probably what they were hoping). Secondly, if as they claimed they cancelled my order, why was no refund given at the time of cancellation? If a company cancels an order, it is incumbent on them to issue a refund, not make the customer contact them to complain about not getting a refund (again, probably hoping the customer doesn't notice or forgets and they can keep your money). I would not be filing this complaint if I thought this was an isolated incident, but I made a post on a blog about what happened and found out from others that this is common operating procedure for this company and they have done this to numerous people. A glance at their ebay feedback shows numerous people in the last 6 months have had the exact same problem with this company. I am asking the Federal trade Commission to look into this matter. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you very much.
