TravelinSperry

Just looking into this for the first time. I notice a way to get 5% off on Southwest Airlines via gift cards on GiftCardZen. They seem legit from what people are saying here - although the cards are called printable and GCZ states that some printable gc's can only be used in store (rather than online). What store? SWA is only online or via phone? Is that just standard language?

Also - does anyone know how long it takes to get a "printable" card? Is the purchase immediate? (so I can buy right before I need to make an airfare purchase)? Specifically looking at GiftCardZen

XP1

I bought 3 Home Depot printable egift cards from Giftcard Zen last week. Paid using PayPal. I got the egift cards almost instantly.

iflyjetz

I just saw this thread. I buy discount gift cards regularly and haven't had any problems yet (knock on wood).
I always check Giftcardgranny first to find best discount.
I've used Raise, cardpool, and a couple of others.

My biggest purchase was a bit more than $2K worth of Sears GCs that I used to buy our washer and dryer. (Compared cost of appliances vs Home Depot/Best Buy/Lowes GC discounts).

We eat out quite a bit so I buy a lot of restaurant GCs.

I've never bought Starbucks cards and after reading this thread, I won't touch them.

sbft77

Using up the gift card before the guarantee period (45 days or whatever) ends is recommended, but how common is it for fraud to happen after that?
In this thread so far, I see 1 person keeping a card after the guarantee period, with 1 report of fraud, giving a 100% rate of fraud; but we only have 1 data point.

iflyjetz

I've got some restaurant GCs past 45 days. Still have a good balance on them.

Bluebirdie

I have been buying store GC online from sites such as cardpool, etc for years but I always try to stay with the larger re-sellers. The goals are to get extra discount, and most importantly to avoid using a CC in big chain stores. If I'm not mistaken, in recent years, there has been more mass CC data lost from store POS systems, than online re-sellers. My thoughts was if I get a bad card, online sellers like cardpool guarantee their cards. And worst case, I'd be out a small amount, rather than my identity. So far, so good!

As to the starbucks GC problem, I usually do this. Once I purchased the SB eGC online, go to our local store and purchase a GC with the online eGC. Never a problem this way. However, some stores refuse to sell GC if paying with their own GC. So YMMV.

BeyondtheWrap

I bought a $75 Subway GC on Raise.com earlier this month. When I tried to add the card to my Subway account, the site told me that the new card was frozen. I called Subway customer service and they told me that the card was involved in fraud, so they would not unfreeze it. I emailed Raise; they issued a refund and asked me to mail the card to them.

pashber

I buy gift cards frequently, mostly JC Penney, since the discounts are very nice (the last one was 18% off). I use Cardpool exclusively at this time. I've never had a problem with JCP cards. However, a couple of years ago, I bought 2 B&N cards that ended up with zeroed out balances. ABC Gift card gave me a hard time on the refund, so I haven't bought from them again. Cardpool gave me a refund pretty quickly.

When I buy gift cards now, I always check the balance the same day I receive them to make sure the balance is what I paid for. I really like the electronic gift cards, which I get within minutes of putting in the order. I have no idea whether they are any more or less secure than the physical cards. The two B&N cards that were zeroed out were physical cards.

explorer84

Just my SBUX GC experience. When I received it, I simply went in store and told them I couldn't add it to my account. The teller simply swiped the physical GC as a purchase and then transferred it to my account. No issues.

cbs1507

I'm new to this discount giftcard thing, but I've made alot of purchases over the last month mainly from raise.com and also from giftcards.com; cardkangaroo.com' and cardpool.com

I've had one bad experience so far where a card was closed after I was able to successfully use a portion of it at a earlier date. I was refunded by raise.com for the remainder. I do have a question about there verification policy. Has anybody experience them saying you have to send a picture of your drivers license or some type of id to verify your purchase? Mind you this is after spending over $1000 using the same card each purchase over the last month.

foggypastry

If you are unlucky, I have heard of several people on the $D forums stating that they bought the card, put it in their account/tagged it (it's some kind of virtual wallet? I don't drink Starbucks), and few weeks/months later, their account is banned due to fraudulent activity. When customers call up Starbucks and ask why, they say that one of the gift cards that was placed on the account recently was fraudulent..... so you lose all your money on that account (whether it be less than the amount of the gift card you spent OR more......)


That being said, as a person that purchases a lot of "used" gift cards, never put in what you're not willing to risk.
Digital gift cards have a higher risk, since people copy the number then sell the card out frequently.

The scariest one that affected me were Costco gift cards. I had accidentally purchased 1.5k (I wasn't reading and did not see the "no return/cancellation" policy) --- about $700 were cleared out before I got them.

But of course, I realized after the fact that those cards could technically be used online......


If you are looking for lowest risk - ALL gift cards that can *ONLY* be used in B&M stores are the way to go. Ross for example - sketchy paper looking cards, but never had a problem with them!

czbay

It's been years since I started using plasticjungle(shut down) and cardpool. But I switched to raise year ago because it has an app and it's faster in terms of sending you the gift cards. I've never had any problem with cardpool but returned a lot of gift cards on raise.

Luckily, i got my empty gift cards returned even if it's beyond the 90 days limit.

The best thing of raise is that they'll send you the egift cards number to your raise app and thru email as soon as you purchase them. It's really useful especially when you are standing in a store waiting to buy something.

Bad news is they have more fraudulent gift cards than other websites. What I did was I used the gift cards (Macy's) as soon as I got them, then I made a return to get some store-issued new physical gift cards. Yeah, I thought I was clever. But no, Macy's blocked my address after I made the return because some of the original gift cards bought on raise were fraudulent. And Macy's doesn't allow me to make online orders any more now. I called them and they told me they had contacted raise. I am still waiting to solve the problem.

Newgene

I buy a lot of merchandise credits as much I do GCs from ebay. I use my CC to fund paypal to pay for them. Sure, you can't use them online, but because of that, nobody can drain them FAIK. I have never had a problem with them. I did have a few Petsmart GCs expire a few years ago within a few months of purchase because the seller didn't say they were several years old. I had to fight Petsmart to get the money back, but they did. They had a no expiration policy, but they killed them because some "other time limit" expired. At first they didn't honor them. I had to google someone's direct voicemail in a corporate office, but after calling them directly, they resolved it.

jmw

I really don't have much sympathy for those of you who buy gift cards from these marketplaces and get stuck with a stolen gift card. I just got through disputing $10k worth of gift card purchases made with a stolen credit card at Target. I already know I'm not taking the loss.

However, if you end up stuck with one of these gift cards, too bad. In my mind, you are still a cog in the crime by making it easy for crooks to liquidate their stolen gift cards for cash. I'm glad to see that laundering the gift cards to another card or via a return doesn't work. And now, there are lots of ebay gift cards floating around. Once you tie just one of these to your ebay/paypal accounts, you're done even if the deactivation occurs months afterwards.

stwawk

You sound a bit bitter considering it may have taken a few moments out of your day to call the cc issuer and dispute the fraudulent transactions. You weren't liable for the charges, but rather it was a minor inconvenience for you.

Had you not experienced this, would your attitude be the same? It's rather unfortunate that you are essentially applauding others' loss. Let's say you receive a gift card from someone for $100 to Starbucks. Let's also assume you detest Starbucks. What are you going to do with the $100 that you can't use? Sure, you'd give it to your coworker; but in the real world (not the world you think others should live in but you yourself are exempt from) most people would rather get at least something from the giftcard. So what do they do? They sell it on one of these sites. Why do you find this so unacceptable?

Now let's go a step further and say someone on the other side of the country loves Stsrbucks. He spends a small fortune there. He would jump at the opportunity to save 10-15% on his drinks, so he goes to one of these sites and purchases a discounted gift card. What's the harm in that? Surely unless you use paper money as toilet paper because you just can, you try to save as much money and as frequently as possible.

The Starbucks fan was lucky because you didn't sell him a fraudulent gift card, but in the past, he has had such experience. However, he didn't lose out because he disputed the transaction with his card issuer. Why should you have the ability to dispute a fraudulent charge but tell him he should just accept his loss and move on.

It's all about commerce in the online marketplace. I try to keep that in mind and look at the situation from a rational
point of view and take nothing personal because it's not.