Introduction
I’ve been meaning to write this post for weeks (possibly months now,) and about once a week, I am reminded that I should write this post because I’ll hear stories from readers about gift card issues with these 3rd party sites like Raise, Cardcash, ABC, etc.
In the past (I’d say before Thanksgiving 2015,) 3rd party sites were a great place to buy discounted gift cards to places like Home Depot, Lowes, Kohl’s, Staples, etc. Before that, I could always count on Raise gift cards to be 100% legit. However, it seems the scammers realized that the best way to cash out stolen credit cards is to buy gift cards and then sell those gift cards to the 3rd party exchanges. Here are some examples.
Macy’s / Bloomingdales gift cards
The first time I realized things were amiss with Raise and these 3rd party gift cards was when I couldn’t use Bloomingdale’s gift cards that I had bought on Raise on the Bloomingdale’s web site. This was around the time of the $20K reselling challenge. I had to contact Raise and get refunds for about $5,000 in bad gift cards. This was around fall 2015.
Lowe’s gift cards
Recently, a reader told me he couldn’t use Lowes gift cards that he had bought from Cardcash at Lowes. They had a balance on them, but they couldn’t be used either in store or online. Very odd. Apparently Lowe’s changed their system to either not accept merchandise credit online or vice versa. This is why you now see 2 types of Lowe’s gift cards on Raise. And unfortunately the user was passed the 45 day limit. I told them to contact Cardcash anyway to see if they could help.
Kohl’s gift cards
I had stacked up on Kohl’s gift cards around the Holidays when the cards were around 15% off on Raise, which was unheard of. Sure enough, the majority of them have turned out to be bad. I had submitted a refund claim for about $2K worth of GC in February and after 2-3 emails, Raise just keeps saying, “We are working on your refund request. We have too many requests right now.” It’s such bullshit! F* you Raise! Give me my damn money!
Chick-Fil-A gift cards
I had bought 2x$50 gift cards off Raise around Christmas. Went to use them weeks later, rejected! Got the refund pretty easily, but still, c’mon, IS NOTHING SCARED ANYMORE!?!
Lessons Learned
The lesson I’ve learned now and you should as well – don’t stockpile gift cards from 3rd party exchanges. If you do, buy from giftcardzen, which has an unlimited warranty on the gift cards it sells. Even then, I wouldn’t go nuts. I’ll only buy from the 3rd party exchanges if I see an immediate use of the gift cards. If I’m not making the purchase within 45 or 90 days, I don’t buy the cards. Plus, you may be better off with eBay gift card sales.
I have had trouble with several cards lately. I had 2 cards from Firehouse Subs (Card Cash) that had been drained over a month before I got them. They gave me a quick refund, which I appreciate, but they say they check the cards and that simply isn’t true. It looks like they wait until they get a complaint and then refund the money. Anyway, they made me whole but I agree that you should only buy when you are going to use them right away.
Count me as another avoiding Raise for good…. end of January I purchased several K worth of Kohls gift cards to use right away. Used the gift cards in a matter of a day with no issues….2 days later just after my orders had shipped I notice a couple orders have the dreaded FedEx exception notification! Kohls turned around 2 orders because the gift cards turned out to be purchased with stolen credit cards…. needless to say Kohls also noticed I was a reseller at the same time… 3.5 years worth of reselling all came to an end!
Oh man, sorry to hear. Yeah, I have a feeling my Kohl’s ban may have been partly because of using these stolen 3rd party GCs too.
Just had to live & learn…proves the point to minimize human eyes looking at your account…. onto the next opportunities!
I’ve had a few $500 Kohl’s GCs from Raise and other 3rd party resellers show up with a $0 value, or they’d error out when checking balance, or I’d use half the value and the next day they’d be drained. Now I only buy GCs from resellers if I know I can use them within a few days, otherwise it’s not worth the PITA.
Yup, I’ve even considered that buying odd valued cards are better since they are most likely returns vs a fraud purchase. That worked well for 1 big Raise purchase back in December. I’ve stopped buying these days though unless I plan on using immediately.
I’ve still got a bunch of Kohl’s GCs here from canceled orders/items and everything is super expensive right now so hopefully when they run a sale my value will still be on the GCs.
Dude, it’s like I’m talking to myself right now.
Hahaha, tell me about it. I think we’re reselling different things though, I’ve only seen some small overlap items when you’re ever disclosed them.
Yeah seriously F*ck Raise. They’re all over here in Chicago with their “hipster fascist chic” with matching tshirts and billboards and park benches and shit. They have nice real estate downtown and apparently dripping with VC cash.
My thing was buying Whole Foods gift cards and (1) being told I couldn’t use them because they don’t except paper certificates, and (2) one of the two that I bought had a zero balance, and (3) the Whole Foods people were sketched out. Which, whatever, go eat some truffle cheese and chill right? Oh but the worst part is (4) I got the phone support guy at Raise to ADMIT THAT THEY KNEW WHOLE FOODS WASN’T ACCEPTING THESE PAPER CERTIFICATES but they didn’t proactively reach out to me and the other customers to do anything about it. Anyway, they refunded the $$$ no problem, but still. F*ck ’em.