fruitylicious

Hi I know I'm new here, but I just wanted to post if someone else had a similar experience and could help: So anyone remember the Amex Neiman Marcus offer back in January? It was $50 off $200 and I bought two $200 eGift cards (with two different Amex cards) and traded them into ABC Giftcards. They were accepted and I received a check in the mail shortly after. Well just last week, I got a letter from a collection agency stating that I owed ABC that traded-in amount of $320. Is this even legal? The trade in was 10 months ago and I never used the eGift cards. I looked online and found similar stories but those had no resolution. And I called ABC & Cardcash but kept getting the run around and the collection agency won't help either. Am I out of luck or anyone have any advice on what to do?

clockhand

why is a collection agency after you? you gave gift cards to ABC right?

fruitylicious

Yeah I literally submitted them in after I received from Neiman Marcus, but now they said that when the buyer received them, buyer claimed nothing was on them, so they are billing me for the lost amount. I never used the gift cards and this transaction was 10 months ago, pretty frustrating to say the least. Apparently this is a common issue with this company ABC when I looked online. Maybe I should've just sold on Raise.com, haven't had an issue with them.

Happy

From what I read on the net, those NM e-gift cards are NOT properly activated by the provider. Hence those cards have NO value, unfortunately. The problem with those who sold their e-gift cards are, now the buyers of those cards wanted their money back from the consolidator who sold them the cards as those cards are worthless. Once the consolidators settled the claims with the buyers, then they traced back to WHO sold the worthless gift cards to them. They dont bother to inform YOU the sellers but sent the job to collection agency.

This is the peril of buying the gift cards then immediately reselling it to cash out. Because anything not working in the middle, eventually going back to haunt you. There is no solution other than contacting NM who sold you the worthless e-GC.

rccsd

Just saw another Exxon offer

Spend $25+, get 1,000 Membership Rewards® Points

This should stack with the earlier offer with the same expiration date, right?

Get one additional Membership Rewards® point for each dollar you spend

Happy

Yes, it stacks, so you earn an extra 25 MR pts for that $25 spent.

travlngeng

Just saw a Lowe's offer for spend $50 for 1,000 MRs...any idea if I could buy gift cards at Lowe's and trigger this?

onthego15

Gift card purchases have worked in the past, but you should read the terms and conditions on your offer to make sure that gift card purchases are not excluded.

Mamibear

I received a similar offer for $10 credit instead of MR and I used four cards with the offer and it triggered the email telling me I will see the $10 credits soon. This is the way it worked in the past for a similar offer. I bought a $200 Dining Everywhere VGC paid $50 on each card and the fee with Alliant signature card yesterday; charges are still pending.

Happy

I only wish the Lowes near me actually carry some useful GCs other than Lowes own, and lots of gaming / prepaid phone cards. That are ALL they have, since 18 or even more months ago. The Giftcard Boards are just EMPTY for 4/5 of the slots and has been like this even when the 5B was introduced.

rccsd

Really strange, I just checked my offers and the 1,000 point offer disappeared from my online account. My wife is an AU card and we used it at Exxon last night and she got an email saying we used the offer. If I read the T&C correctly, it's NOT limited to the credit card account per se but rather the online account, right?

I'm new to the hobby so any insight is greatly appreciated.

DrRodneyMcKay

It is attached to the specific *card number* (which is different for main cardholder and AU), not the account.


I myself am thinking of using some of these offers to buy gift cards - either to use myself or to sell at face value. I haven't done this before and don't know too much about it - does anyone have advice for anything I should watch out for? (i know some amex offers explicitly say no gift cards)

Mamibear

If you want to buy GCs, it is best to buy physical GCs from brick and mortar stores like BestBuy, Walmart, BedBathNBeyond, etc because of possibility of the card loads getting clawed back by the merchant. Nieman Marcus did it and the buyers who have already resold the eGCs later on found themselves reported to collections agency. With physical GCs bought from the stores, you can drain the load immediately after buying them and as long as you have the offer saved to each card, you can expect the credits to post days later. IF, by chance you don't have the offer saved and you also didn't get the confirmation email, it may be difficult to prove you had the offer to the card number. I've experienced where I knew I saved the offer but right after redeeming the offer, it was removed from my saved list but fortunately, I got the credit on the card days later.

Happy

Very good advice to those who want to sell their GCs.

As for the offer disappearing, I have found that the offers do not show up the same under 2 different log in interface. I saw the Lowes offer with the current interface but NOT with the old interface which I normally use for all account activities as that is just much more efficient than the latest version which is geared to Mobile app but very cumbersome to use on a desktop - like having to go thru multiple screens to get what you need, plus it lost the ability to see how much outstanding balance on each of your cards at a quick glance - to me that is one of the biggest drawback of the current version. I also cannot go to the bank side seamlessly, So for all accounting needs I continue to use the old version. But for checking offers I use the current version.

DrRodneyMcKay

Sorry if I"m derailing the thread a bit - this is all new to me. When you say "drain the load," what does that mean, exactly? Also, I assume the merchant clawing back the card loads means basically resetting the card balance to 0?

I'm also a bit worried about this because Amex has become stricter about "gaming" and gift card purchases recently. I've only ever bought one gift card using my Amex in four years of having it, so I do have a good track record, but I don't want that to change.