We’re going to go out on a limb here and guess that there is absolutely no one out there who can’t wait to buy a Blockbuster gift card. It’s not exciting consumer news. The curious thing is that while you can buy a Blockbuster gift card today at any of their retail stores, a card for the same brand that you might still have in your desk drawer from only nine months ago is just a worthless piece of plastic. Blame the bankruptcy and sale of Blockbuster. [More]
gift cards
Wells Fargo And Visa Take A Month To Refund $400 Gift Card Error
By 8.25.11
It’s a pretty simple error; easy enough to make. When Todd asked for a $100 Visa gift card at Wells Fargo, the teller misheard “for a hundred” as “four hundred.” $400 was promptly taken out of his bank account and placed on the card, and Todd was never asked to authorize the amount in writing. It was only when he checked the receipt after leaving the bank that he found the error. He set off to get his money put back into his account, but it wasn’t so simple even just minutes after the transaction. Adding a credit card company into the mix adds a new and exciting level of bureaucracy when dealing with a large bank. [More]
Get Your Christmas Creep Gift Cards At Sam's Club
By 8.15.11
If you’re planning to give a Sam’s Club gift card to someone you care about (or someone to whom you’re obligated to give a gift) this winter gift-giving season, Sam’s Club has you covered. Now. In mid-August. “It’s going to be over 100 degrees outside ALL WEEK..and has been the past 2-3 weeks,” writes Joel, the blogger who noticed these cards at his local Sam’s. “100 degree heat, drought, and Christmas Gift cards. Go Texas?” [More]
How A Sears Promotion Gobbled Up $25 Of My Money
By 7.8.11
Kenneth isn’t quite sure what to do. He bought enough men’s clothing items at Sears to trigger a deal giving him a restricted $25 gift card to Sears. Hooray! Only when he came back to return some of the items, the card’s value was deducted from his refund, forcing him to spend $25 more at Sears than he had ever planned to. [More]
Still Have A Sharper Image Gift Card? It Might Actually Be Worth Something
By 7.7.11
When gadget galleria Sharper Image stopped accepting gift cards only days after filing for bankruptcy protection in February 2008, consumers were left holding an estimated $19 million in useless plastic. But a class-action case against the company has managed to wrest some money from the shuttered company for those who were screwed over three years ago. [More]
Oregon Lawmakers Want To Cash Out Small-Balance Gift Cards
By 5.26.11
Gift cards with just a few bucks left on them are nagging annoyances. Oregon’s state house is fed up with the glorified plastic coupons and passed a bill that would require businesses to let customers exchange them for cash. [More]
Online Service Turns Your Unwanted Gift Cards Into Cold Hard Cash
By 5.16.11
We’ve all gotten a gift card to that one place you’d never step foot in, much less purchase something from. So the chance to turn that unwanted bit of plastic into something you actually want, say, cash, or credit somewhere else, is an enticing idea. [More]
USPS Attempts To Fight Off Financial Disaster By Selling Gift Cards
By 5.2.11
As the US Postal Service faces insolvency, the relic of a pre-internet world (and symbol/punch line for inefficiency and ineptitude) has come up with a really good idea for making some extra cash: Selling pre-paid AMEX, Visa, MasterCard and Discover cards. [More]
Use Up Your Blockbuster Gift Cards Before April 7, 2011
By 3.30.11
Do you have any Blockbuster Video gift cards lying around the house? Better find them and use them up soon, assuming that you can find a Blockbuster outlet. Multiple sources inside the company have let us know that those gift cards won’t be accepted after April 6, 2011 due to the company’s bankruptcy. [More]
Will Making Gift Cards Entirely Virtual Make Them Better?
By 3.30.11
We at Consumerist have long taken a stance against gift cards: they’re like giving someone a gift of cash, only with rules and limitations. What’s the point of that? There’s a whole secret economy in unused gift cards in America: up to 20% of the things are never used up. But some planned changes to gift cards could theoretically make them easier to spend and harder to lose. [More]
Do Gift Card Laws Keep My Groupons From Expiring?
By 1.25.11
As Groupon continues to expand across the country into more and more markets, consumers are finding they’re not quite sure how to deal with this new beast when it comes to state laws governing coupons and gift certificates. [More]
Employee: Borders Is Making Us Push Loyalty Cards That May Be Worthless If Company Declares Bankruptcy
By 1.14.11
Borders has struggled to pay publishers and may be facing bankruptcy. As a result, one employee is alleging the bookseller is getting desperate, ordering employees to encourage customers to buy loyalty cards that could lose all value if the company files Chapter 11. [More]
Barnes & Noble Bot: Your Order Is Canceled And You Get No Refund (Updated)
By 1.5.11
UPDATE: Barnes & Noble refunded Meghan’s money and gave her a $25 gift certificate. The original post follows: [More]
New Jersey Wants To Balance Budget With Your Gift Cards
By 1.5.11
What would be even worse than losing the entire stored value of your gift cards after a few years? Having the state seize it as unclaimed property and use your money to pay its bills. [More]
Banana Republic Register Mishap Leaves You With Neither GIft Card Balance Nor Clothes
By 12.31.10
The good news: There is a store that will accept American Express gift cards without even trying to throw you in jail. It’s Banana Republic. The bad news: A still-unexplained register problem left Andrew without the $90 remaining balance on his card or the items that he tried to purchase. [More]
Have You Had Trouble Using Best Buy Gift Cards Online?
By 12.30.10
In recent days, we’ve received numerous complaints from people who attempted to use Best Buy gift cards to make purchases on the store’s website, only to end up frustrated and trapped in BB’s byzantine customer service maze. [More]
What Will You Do With Your Gift Card Haul?
By 12.28.10
Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, odds are you’re a gift card or three richer than you were before. Perhaps your employer blanket-gifted the office with them in lieu of a year-end bonus, or maybe a friend or work contact slipped you one as a show of appreciation. [More]
You Meant A $15 Starbucks Gift Card, Not $50? That's Too Bad
By 12.17.10
It was an understandable mistake: Ann writes that she asked for a fifteen-dollar gift card from Starbucks. The person at the counter processed a fifty-dollar gift card instead. But the Starbucks point-of-sale system isn’t set up to handle this kind of unforeseen circumstance, so Ann is out fifty bucks for the next month or so while Starbucks customer service sorts this out. [More]
