Coupons and promotions are great things to get customers into a store and to get our attention, but sometimes you have to stop and say, “Wait a minute.” Here are two cases of inauspicious promotions that readers have spotted lately: a stack of worthless coupons, and a gift card advertised at its face value. [More]
gift cards
Were These Gift Cards Stolen, Or Gobbled By The Mail-Sorting Machine?
By 12.19.13
We were very sad to read about a family in St. Louis who opened up a Christmas card from Grandma only to find $350 in Walmart gift cards missing. The victim took his story to the local news, assuming that the cards had been stolen at some point after mailing. That’s certainly possible, since human beings are terrible. There’s another possibility, though. [More]
The $1 Billion Tragedy: Unredeemed Gift Cards In America
By 12.9.13
Gift cards can be a truly great gift…to the retail sector. While only 1% of gift cards go unredeemed, with about $116 billion in gift card sales annually, that’s more than $1 billion that we’re just leaving in a drawer until retailers take it back. [More]
Split Your Amazon Transaction And Use Up That Old Visa Gift Card
By 12.5.13
Do you have an old prepaid debit card or major credit card-branded gift card sitting around? Maybe it’s sitting around because it has a balance on it that’s too small to be very useful, yet not such a small amount that you’re willing to throw it away. Here’s a novel solution: use it to split a transaction on Amazon. [More]
Sears Settles With New York Over Deceptive Refunds
By 9.12.13
For more than two years, Sears offered “Come Back Cash” promotions that rewarded customers with Sears gift cards for purchases over certain qualifying thresholds. But if a customer returned an item, they would have the proportionate value of that gift card deducted from the refund, even if the total value of the purchase was still above the threshold for meriting a gift card. [More]
Judge Says Customers Won’t See One Red Cent Of Unredeemed Borders Gift Cards
By 5.24.13
Ineffective rectangular frisbees? Tiny coasters? Better start thinking of some ideas for any of those unredeemed Borders gift cards you may still have lying around: A judge ruled this week that customers won’t see a nickel of a total of $210.5 million in remaining balances on gift cards they failed to use before Borders bit the big one and went off to that great mall in the sky. [More]
FTC Goes After Spammers Responsible For 180 Million “Free Gift Card” Text Messages
By 3.7.13
Through eight lawsuits filed in four different U.S. District Courts, the Federal Trade Commission has put the regulatory smackdown on 29 alleged text spammers believed to have blasted out more than 180 million unwanted text messages to consumers. [More]
Kohl’s Staff Is Helpless When Gift Card System Goes Down
By 3.5.13
One of the most important factors in determining whether a retailer provides quality customer service is how it handles unexpected problems. Unfortunately for one Consumerist reader, no one at Kohl’s seemed willing to do any creative thinking when the store’s gift card system went down. [More]
You Can Buy Staples Gift Cards Online, But Can’t Use Them On Staples.com
By 2.21.13
Jenny has a problem with Staples, and happened to find a post that we wrote about the same problem four years ago. Staples, you see, has a web site and they have about 1,600 stores. You can buy Staples gift cards in many places, including from Staples’ own website. But back in 2009, you couldn’t use Staples gift cards to buy things on the site. You still can’t. [More]
How I Turned A Walmart Gift Card Into An EA Game Preorder By Way Of A Kitchen Appliance
By 2.20.13
Reader O. wanted to preorder a new game from 2012 Worst Company in America champ EA, and he wanted to use some money that he had on a Walmart gift card. Fair enough. What he did have was a $50 Walmart gift card and some cash. Walmart theoretically carries EA gift cards, so he should have been able to visit his nearest Wally World, pick up a card, take it home, and pre-order a delicious Crysis 3 download. Indeed, he was able to do that, but only after he took a pocketful of cash across the street and bought his desired EA gift card at GameStop. You can use a Walmart gift card for anything that the store sells…except prepaid debit cards. [More]
Just What We Don’t Need — More Gift Cards! And This One’s From Facebook
By 1.31.13
Say the word “gift card” around Consumerist HQ and hackles will raise at an alarming rate. Which is why we’re greeting the news of a new gift card offered by Facebook with what one might call, “extreme wariness and trepidation.” Building on the social network’s recent launch of Facebook Gifts, these cards will be able to hold balances for multiple retailers and are reusable. [More]
Good Thing There’s No Such Thing As An IKEA Gift Card Balance Emergency
By 1.21.13
Have you ever had an IKEA gift card? Did you ever need to check the balance without being inside an IKEA store? Valerie wanted to check the balance on hers, which she thought should be a simple transaction using an automated customer service system or the retailer’s website. The problem is that IKEA has shut down its gift card request line: you know, the one listed on the back of the card itself. [More]
Best Buy Needs 2 Forms Of Photo ID To Give You Five Bucks For A Broken Cell Phone
By 1.14.13
Quick: in your wallet right now, do you have two photo IDs? I do, but only if you count a BJ’s card. If you don’t, don’t visit Best Buy to trade in your junky old cell phones. In the subject line of his e-mail to us, reader S. declared his weekend to be the “Worst Best Buy Experience Ever.” We wouldn’t go that far, maybe because our bar is set a little low for what the “worst” experience at any given retailer should be. It was pretty irritating, though.
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Consumers Now Feeling The Pain Of Post-Holiday Gift Card Scams
By 1.4.13
Back in December, we told you about how scammers could take money from your gift card before you even get a chance to use it. Now that people are trying to cash in those cards, they’re feeling the sting of finding out they have a zero balance. [More]
Best Buy Makes Sure Gift Card Arrives Safely, Sends It Packed In Air Cushions
By 1.2.13
Kevin took advantage of a totally amazing Best Buy deal where he could buy a $100 iTunes gift card for only $80. The card came in the regular old mail instead of being virtual, though, and Kevin assumed that it would arrive in some sort of envelope. What with it being a small, flat object and all. But no! Instead, Best Buy sent it along in a cardboard box filled with air pillows. [More]
Online Start-Up Lets You Give Presents From Afar Without Those Pesky Gift Cards
By 12.20.12
We know there are plenty of you out there who also abhor gift cards — either you forget about them in a drawer or don’t realize there are a ton of hidden fees eating away at your credit — but then again, shopping for loved ones who live far away can be so hard sometimes. A new online start-up called Yiftee thinks it has the solution, even if its choice of name is questionable. [More]
Kmart Tracks Down Reader After 2-Day Shipping Became 2-Week Shipping, Tries To Help
By 12.19.12 — Updated: 12.20.12
You may remember reader Linda, who ordered a computer from Kmart with 2-day shipping as a Christmas gift for her mother. Kmart’s idea of “2-day shipping” that they charge extra for turned out to be “2-week shipping” once they actually got around to shipping the computer. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t, you know, a Christmas gift, and if Kmart planned to ship it before December 24th. Based on the information in the post, the nice people at Kmart’s executive customer relations department tracked Linda down, which is impressive and only a little bit unnerving. [More]
Here’s Another Reason To Avoid Giving Gift Cards
By 12.14.12
By this point, we’ve probably all given or received gift cards during the holidays. But most consumers don’t know how easy it is for scammers to steal value from these cards, and what a pain in the butt in can be to get that money back. [More]
