Best Buy gift cards have been ON FIRE for the past month. Anyway, a good source of buying them was from Best Buy’s site, which was powered by Cashstar. So what volume did I do? I mean the limit is $2K a day, so it’s not like I went nuts. I did 3 consecutive days, then quiet for 4 days, then did 5 consecutive days, and somewhere between then and a week later, I got the axe (order is immediately cancelled.)
I knew it was a bad sign when I went to go buy GCs in store and the cashier said, “Uhhh the system won’t let me sell these to you because you’ve been flagged as reseller.” Then I heard someone got banned from MyGiftCardsPlus (I was too after like 4-5 cards,) and when they called, the rep said they were banned cuz they were a reseller. The question is how the hell would Cashstar/MGCP know that right? Well I think what’s happening is the GCs are being used to buy items for resale (or maybe on an account that is flagged as a reseller) and then Best Buy is tracing the source of the GC’s and then blocking people who are buying them. My hunch is this is why they’ve set velocity limits at retail stores selling the gift cards.
On the bright side, my Best Buy points haven’t been wiped out yet, but I hear that’s a common occurrence, so burn them if you have them!
Lesson learned – rotate through MANY accounts in hopes your account isn’t flagged as a reseller, but I’m sure it’s a matter of time before your account is flagged too.
When you say in-store… are you saying in-store at BBY? Wouldn’t grocery be a good play as well?
Why not both?
Vinh, what’s the angle to buying BB GC’s from BB itself? I’m guessing you’re getting 2.5.% back in BB Rewards, and maybe your CC gives you another maybe 2.5%? One of the guys on our Slack says he’s been getting 99% face on BB GC’s, if that’s the case are you doing this to make maybe 4% overall?
Yes, that’s the play
Who is paying 99% for bb?
Why would anyone buy these at 99% of face value, assuming they are paying in cash and not getting cc rewards? That doesn’t make sense. You can buy them first hand from almost anywhere with better cash back than that.
Volume. I bet many resellers that are doing $500k in purchases care a lot about getting a 1% discount. And they’d otherwise be banned with their own CC and flagged as a reseller.
Ken spitting facts!
But that doesn’t answer the question of why they couldn’t acquire the gift cards themselves at a better discount. Doesn’t seem very complicated to buy Best Buy gift cards just about anywhere using your credit card for better returns, and the benefit of float on top of it.
Obviously using gift cards doesn’t seem to have any positive impact on not being flagged as a reseller. Not sure how someone buying $500K of items would expect to fly under the radar whatever their payment method.
You don’t understand how to scale Best Buy to that level then. Have you heard of the buyer groups?
I have bought over 6 million the past year so I can’t just get that value anywhere 2k is a joke for me I’m not gunna spend all day to get 20k understand? And there are ways how to go under the radar Unlimited if u know what ur doin!