I bought two Hyatt gift cards from eBay (Seller: elizabethperez55) one on 12/29/2015 for $425 (value $500) and the second for $320 (value $400) on 1/1/2016. I received the Hyatt eCerts via US mail the actual paper certificates and when I checked with Hyatt, the combined value of $900 for both cards was there. Paper certs did not have an expiration date on them.
Ending a stay at the HROC on 5/30/2016, I checked out and tried to use the paper certs I bought as above. To my huge disappointment (not to mention embarrassment), there was zero value in both paper certs! I paid using a credit card and when got home I called and checked with Hyatt to be told these Hyatt certs don't have any monetary value in them!
I paid $745 for these cards and got nothing in return. I contacted eBay which is very hard to do and they said sorry nothing they can do. I also contacted PayPal which credit card records showed they processed the payment to no avail. Further, I emailed the seller and requested a refund and she laughed at me in her email response!!! I was left to assume that this was fraud and she used the US mail system to perpatrate this fraud. I gave her 7 days to refund me but she did not respond. Therefore, I had to report her to the US Postal Inspection Service. I received an email form letter from the Inspection Service which did not say anything specific to the situation at hand.
Until today, I have not received any refund or compensation of any sort!
What should I do next? Who to contact?
