Someone is selling $120 worth of gift checks that expire 3/31/05. Some rocket scientist has bid them up to $123.50.

Here's the auction..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEBI:IT

Am I missing something or does this person just WANT to pay $123.50 for something that has a face value of $120?

Hey, that is my bid, is this a personal attack?

actually, a second rocket scientist now has them at $135

The certificates are FREE, the rocket scientest is bidding on the shipping and handling. Maybe the certificates are being hand delivered by the Playmate of the month.


The final bidding price will be your shipping and handling fee. The Hyatt gift certificates themselves are free, you are bidding on the shipping and handling fee for sending these check certificates.

so that's how they're going to go about selling them again-"shipping & handling fee" I can't believe anyone would pay more or even close to what the certificate is worth-strange!

In all seriousness, that does boggle the mind. I, however, once did see another situation with a possibly reasonable explanation. I searched for an iTunes gift certificate on EBay and low and behold they were selling for over face value. I contacted the seller and he/she replied that, actually, it was legit according to them because iTunes GC's could not be bought outside the USA (???) so he said he was selling them, over and over, to those overseas who couldn't buy them but wanted to gift them to family and friends.

I suppose that might make sense.

Anyways, the check certificate thing used to be wonderful...once upon a time you could get GP points just for buying them, but alas, that promo doesn't seem to be coming back :-(

ooh.........that can get that seller in trouble. ebay has a rule against exhorbinate s&h rules. and i'd call that exhorbinate.

I've got yet another theory for why they would. Maybe they're priceline people who get the 10 ebay anything dollars for every transaction. So maybe this transaction isn't costing them that much at all. If I had anything points (alot of them), I might use them to buy hotel gc's as well......because they wouldn't be costing me as much as if I went to the front desk and paid.

The seller could have also gotten the gc's at points.com so they were basically free for him. So any amount is a profit. He's just lucky it was a demanded item.

BTW, it is not illegal to sell gift certificates. Even ebay has a category for them. You just can't sell miles (although some sellers do) or reward nights.

Actually, since you don't pay the final value fee on the S&H, it is against the rules to charge outrageous S&H fees. In this case, the S&H fees ARE the amount of the auctions & FVFs are paid on them, so there's no broken rule.

[QUOTE]
BTW, it is not illegal to sell gift certificates. Even ebay has a category for them. You just can't sell miles (although some sellers do) or reward nights.



It may not be illegal to sell the gift certificates, but it says right on the certificate that it's void if sold for cash or other consideration, so if Hyatt tracked them at all the buyer would be sol. I actually bought a couple of these myself on ebay (70% face value-which is good) pre-kauai trip last year, but it then appeared that Hyatt or someone was cracking down as they disappeared from ebay (especially after the whole 5,000 gold passport point fiasco). I now get them on my own through two credit cards I have-citibank and usbank, offer points which can be redeemed fo Hyatt certs. among others. Which is also how people probably get them to sell on ebay.