Originally Posted by CFFrost

Wow. What a saga. Short version - don't bother faxing in the info. Just call the number on the gift card activation receipt.

I faxed all of the documents in on the 16th. They told me 7-10 days. I called a couple of times to try to see if they had received my documents but no one would give me an answer.

Called back on the 30th, after a full 10 business days. Was told they would "escalate" the call, and that I should receive a call back in 48 hours. No call back ever received.

Called back AGAIN on the 6th. Again told I would receive a call back in 48hrs. Again, no call back received.

Called to follow up on the 10th and said that there were no notes on the account (apparently "escalation" sometimes chooses to leave notes rather than call back) indicating that my fax had never been received. I have the confirmation - so I know that isn't true. They probably just lost or deleted it by mistake or something.

Called the Ralph's store - they had no idea what I was talking about.

Found the number on the activation slip and the woman was TREMENDOUSLY helpful. She looked up the cards, verified my payment method, called Visa to confirm that it was OK to activate the card, asked me to send her a copy of my receipt and the front and back of the cards. After review, while neither card had activated properly, one had also been tampered with before purchase. She activated the one card that had not been tampered with, and set me up with all the info needed to get a replacement card for the one that had been tampered with. In the end, the phone call took about 45 minutes. I have 1 card activated and can run to the store to replace the other one.

Thanks for the suggestion to call! Much easier!