Introduction
I think most of you are aware that Giftcardzen has the best return policy out there among the 3rd party gift card exchanges – they say “forever.” But I think we are all jaded by this point from all the fraud on Raise, Cardcash, ABC, etc that we don’t really believe in “forever.” It’s like saying, “I will forever work out and never let myself go” in your mid 20’s. Oh silly naive younger me.
Electronic gift card policy contradicts “forever.”
When you buy an egc from GCZ, they have the disclaimer above. Before this post, I read that policy as, “You’re SOL with egcs from GCZ,” but reading it again, I think the disclaimer means you can’t ask for a return or a refund (but you’re still protected from $0 balances.) Anyhow, even with that disclaimer, I’ve chosen to buy from GCZ over Raise even if Raise may have a higher discount. The reason for that is because I hadn’t had 1 bad gift card from GCZ yet, egc or physical. Until last week…
Zero balance
I had bought a ~$300 Anthropologie egc for my wife back in January. She had visited the store many times, but never pulled the trigger on anything. Recently, she went to go use the egc and got Mutombo’ed at the register, meaning the cashier told her the words you never want to hear, “This card has a zero balance.”
Contacting Giftcardzen
I went ahead and replied to the original order email from back in January (5 months later) and told them the Anthropologie GC had a zero balance. After 2 days, they refunded me with no problems. Now that’s customer service!
Conclusion
While I have said that I won’t stockpile gift cards anymore, it still pains me when my wife goes shopping and doesn’t pay with a discounted GC. So now I’ll buy low denomination gift cards for stores she frequents often but only from Giftcardzen since they have their “forever” guarantee. I’m not sure how the Retailmenot acquisition will affect this guarantee going forward (I hope they keep it,) but for the time being, I’m comfortable buying from GCZ and you should too.
Keep in mind this can go both ways though. I’ve sold a card to saveya before where they issued a refund to the buyer well outside of their guarantee policy. They didn’t even notify me about it and wouldn’t respond (what can they really say to support themselves?).
Oh man that sucks. Sorry to hear.
I’ve had GCZ refund $0 EGCs as well. I always try to buy from them because their policies are very customer friendly compared to others.