I had made a post about how Amazon closed my account a few years ago due to a high GC balance. I get a comment once a month or so of it happening to normal folks. So what happened here? Once again, I was adding gift cards to my Amazon account and it got up to about $3500. And next thing you know, AXE! The odd thing is that I have 2 accounts and I was loading them both for the same amount at the same time (account B was close to 3.5K as well) so I’m not sure why they chose account A to axe. Account B is still doing fine. This was the email I got:
Hello,
We have closed your account, canceled all outstanding orders, and voided your current Amazon.com Gift Card balance.
We took these actions because you were using Amazon.com Gift Cards in violation of our Terms and Conditions. We cannot reissue the Gift Cards or provide a refund.
If you believe you received this message in error, please call Customer Service at:
Customers within U.S. and Canada: 1-888-280-4331 International customers: 1-206-922-0880
You can find more information about the terms and conditions that apply to Amazon.com Gift Cards here:
Sincerely, Account Specialist
Amazon.com
I’m still not 100% sure if my account was closed due to the gift card loads or if it’s the usage of the gift cards to buy Best Buy gift cards. I had stopped buying the Best Buy gift cards way back in January and plus, lots of other people buy BBY just fine, so it’d be odd that they closed me for using the GCs to buy BBY. So I think it was due to the load side of the GC’s.
The odd thing is that a few weeks after that email, I logged into my account and it asked me to upload receipts of gift cards and/or credit card statements. I uploaded the credit card statements since that was an option and I figure that was what they wanted. A few days after that, I got this email:
Hello,
After a review of your details, we have determined it is necessary to close your Amazon.com account. Any pending orders have been canceled.
We may not reply to further emails about this issue.
Sincerely,
Account Specialist
Amazon.com
A few weeks later, I tried to escalate my case. That then got forwarded down to the GC team who then asked for receipts of the gift cards, which I then uploaded. A few days after that, I get this:
Hello,
Thank you for writing back regarding your Amazon.com Gift Card activity. We sent an email on 04/21/2021 informing you that your Gift Card usage is in violation of Amazon.com Gift Card Terms and Conditions and we closed your account.
After careful consideration, we have confirmed the original decision was correct and we are unable to address this situation any further.
You can find more information about the terms and conditions that apply to Amazon.com Gift Cards here:
Best Regards,
Account Specialist,
Amazon.com
So I’m kinda screwed now and I’m out 3.5K of my money that they confiscated. Not quite sure what to do next. I think I’m going to have to BBB, CFPB, write to my attorney general, etc because it seems illegal that they can confiscate my GC balance without even giving me a specific reason as to why they closed my account. Stay tuned.
The main lesson learned here – I’m not buying anymore Amazon GCs going forward. It’s just not worth it.
and here I am complaining over $5..my issue is I play games on my phone such as Mistplay and mode earn that offer MasterCard and Amazon gift cards…every time I use one to pay for my order I get my account canceled and they keep my money. what’s the point of having those gift cards if Amazon doesn’t accept them…I’m confused
Amazon confisticated my 337 $ May 2023 and closed my account. I spend hours a hours requesting that i have all amazon card but they just treat me like a slave. Amazon Canada is Mafia. There is no law for them. Law is only for salves. There is no way you you can complain about them. Now you know how Jeff bezo get rich. But remember, all amazon employee and Jeff bezow pay this 3 times and amazon will be cursed to go bankrupt and employee get pink slip the same way they confisticated my hard earned money. GOD please do justice !!!
Did you get your money back? Did you get your account back? I want to see?
same for me, 150$
Did any of u get your money or gift card back?
Same thing here with a 1000$ balance got exactly the same emails. This is really outrageous that they can confiscate our money like this no warning nor specific explanation.
Thts an aggressive behavior form a gazillion dollar company that apparently can do whatever it wants.
I wish I knew what to do with it
I have wrote to BBB but it doesn’t seem that Amazon is taking them to seriously and still sending a bully replies.
I’m currently going through the same thing. Amazon closed my account and kept my $100 gift card. I’ve reached out to Amazon multiple times and the representatives had no explanation and were very hard to understand. I’m considering legal action. This isn’t right scamming ppl out of there money
Same thing happened to me i did a return and the next day i got a email that amazon closed my account with $500 gift card balance no warning at all they refused after i escalated it to give my money back this is absolutely theft and bullshit they get away with it no wonder there so welthy there literally stealing from people and yes a class action is what needs to happen
I am going through this right now! I had a gift card balance of $500 and they Amazon closed my account. No reason given! I have called and called and I’m told we can’t help you the account specialist made their decision. I was using that money for my kids Christmas presents! I have no idea what to do.
This may sound extreme but since this is obviously a huge issue with Amazon AND eBay, and given the fact that they are actually stealing money. This should really be reported to the feds. Big companies or small company, theft is theft plain and simple. This could be a huge class action lawsuit against the two biggest online retailers in the world. They want us to pay for there inability to properly secure and maintain a gift card program. Update on my story, I called literally and truthfully FIVE TIMES a day for 9 days straight. They finally sent me an email stating that they unfroze my cards but for only 72 hours. Well I got my things, but what unmitigated gall to “allow” me access to MY money for only 72 hours. They sure will take your money, and NO WHERE on anywhere is it ever stated that they will freeze your cards and possibly keep your money if they want to. They need to be federally prosecuted for theft. Maybe then Bezos and whoever is in charge at eBay will fix this issue.
A bunch of Ganovim.
This is the exact same thing that is happening at eBay. I bought 500 dollars in gift cards because I wanted a watch, label printer, label printer tape, and a small hobby type razor pen. An hour later I attempted a purchase and it was denied, eBay stated they wanted my receipt and a photo of the back of the cards. I had to jump thru hoops and still having issues getting anything to work. All these companies put their money in banks, so as soon as you buy these cards their bank balance goes up and they are making interest off of our money. The longer they keep the money away from you the more interest they make. It may sound small but imagine all these people (hundreds of thousands) with frozen gift cards for various amounts of money. This probably adds up to many many millions a year in absolutely free money. And what do we get ? An aggravating process of clearing things up that again cost us money in time dealing with this.
This exact same thing happened to me recently. It’s also happened to other people I know. It’s absolutely unbelievable. I have no idea how Amazon gets away with this. It is basically theft on their part. They are stealing from customers who legitimately purchased gift cards or who were given gift cards that were legitimately purchased. I’m not sure if any lawyers out there have started a class action lawsuit against them yet, but if they haven’t they should soon. A quick search of the internet will reveal that this is happening to many many people.
As for me personally, I only lost a small amount of money. However, it’s the principle. I had been a very good customer of theirs for about 15 years and they treat me like this. I’m done with them. I will never reopen another account with them and I will never order from them ever again. I will go out of my way to spend my money with other merchants both online and in person.
The exact same thing has happened to me too! I have contacted Amazon multiple times by e-mail and phone, they’ve said that they would activate my account again, but nothing has happened for nearly 1 year. I am $4.000 out!
Please support me by spreading the news, here is my tweet: https://twitter.com/VassilisTheodor/status/1392423165964341252
More people have to get aware of this problem for Amazon to do the right thing and refund our money.
Same thing happened to me I think if we filed a group claim we can sue them together because that’s fraud stealing our money
I think you’re right. My account was hacked in August and put on hold, I use gift cards for purchases. Well all orders were canceled even those that shipped, and when my account was reopen my gift card balance was gone. I called to inquire about my missing gift card money and bam account back on hold. Got it open again. Had money on my gift card and that was gone again. This was an ongoing thing until a couple days ago when they closed my account. In total I’m out over 500 which is a significant amount of money to me. I had a feeling this was an ongoing thing with them. Class action law suit please
Did you get your money back? Did you get your account back? I want to see?
Same thing here, they closed my account with $3,000 worth of GC.
This exact thing happened to me about 2 years ago too, it was outrages and frustrating, took me numerous calls and finally ended up complaining on BBB.org and some one high up came and fixed things. It was also $3500 ish, that’s probably their trigger line. Funny thing is right after they reinstated my account they closed it again because I loaded $50 from my gas station (they were doing a promotion back then and texted me an offer so I was like why not, it’s just $50). So I wrote a BBB complaint again and also got resolved.
Hi,
It happened to my account too. I complained to BBB but Amazon said they couldn’t open my account also, they won’t tell me what was my GC violation. I reload my Amazon GC balance and also bought all the GC form their website. Could you help me to open my account?
this his horrible, amazon get you banned for nothing, not like other small places like jewffer, they dont respect the seller partner in amazon
Small claims court is easy with Amazon. They have distribution centers everywhere. Find the closest distribution center and get the name of any manager. File the lawsuit to that address and serve that manager. Amazon will either 1. ignore the lawsuit or 2. pay you.
If they ignore the lawsuit you will win by default. You then have the judge/magistrate issue a judgement lien against the distribution center. The sherif will go to the distribution center to seize property – at that point you will get a call from Amazon and a check.
Did this work for you? I’m thinking of it ..kept $700 of my balance
About 4 months after my long time Amazon account was reinstated from getting disabled due to a declined large order (two MacBook Pros) using a foreign issued cc that was just added, I received the following email:
Hello,
We have canceled your order and voided your current gift card balance.
We have taken these actions because you are attempting to use Amazon Gift Cards that are in violation of our Terms and Conditions. We cannot reissue the gift cards or reimburse you for these funds. If this activity continues, we may take a permanent action on your account.
You can find more information on the Gift Card Terms and Conditions Help page:
http://www.amazon.com/gc-legal
Sincerely,
Account Specialist
Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com
It was really weird as I did not have any gift card balance at the time. I had only added a few dollars that were received from points I earned from an app. I did use about $15K in gc in 2018-2019, but that balance had long been depleted.
I emailed back asking them to elaborate but never heard anything back. Nothing happened to my account. My guess is that they routinely do reviews. I use source products using this only Amazon account. They probably wanted to take a closer look.
I hope this will get resolved soon relatively painlessly.
I periodically receive online shopping bonus offer on many of my cards, and if I don’t have enough purchase, I just reload my amazon GC balance directly at the end of the month. Most of the times, that results in a phone call from Amazon CS. Do you think this is a risky thing to do?
Since the bridge has been burned perhaps you won’t mind answering: where were you buying the AZ GC’s, i.e. perhaps Kroger for the fuel pts, or somewhere else?
at a groc store
It’s really unfortunate, especially since you have the receipts and the statements, it just seems so completely deceptive and unfair of them to not give you the reason for the shut down and then to withhold the funds. There are tons of people that would join on to a class action or some other sort of lobbying of lawmakers to really change this Giftcard bullshit. Giftcard should really be seen as unsecured loans to the freaking company; Because these days way too many companies, from Best Buy, to Amazon, to Apple, think that they can take your money, or keep canceling your orders paid with gift cards, thereby leaving you stuck with funds you can’t even use even when everything is legitimate.
In this situation you most likely need to take it to small claims, accusing Amazon for causing economic damages and engaging in deceptive business practices (by denying access to funds you have been promised of when there is no violation to the terms of service), demanding that you receive full amount of cash compensation for the gift card balance in the closed account plus any legal costs. You are going to put together proof of purchase and correspondence records. If they ever wish to settle the case and restore your account, be sure to include a clause about Amazon shall be obligated to ensure such situation never happen in future. If they are unwilling to reinstate your account, insist that they recover your damages in cash.
I’m going to guess Vinh doesn’t want ‘his’ accounts and cards looked at too closely lol
I had my Amazon account closed on September 6th without any explanation other than your account had been closed for violating our reseller terms of service..
I have since found out that if you use gift cards to purchase items for other people/ friends/ family etc that is a violation of there terms of service.
I lost all the contributions, and had orders cancelled that I used gift cards to pay for.
All total it was close to 100.00.
I have since seen it posted all over groups that Amazon is closing accounts.
After speaking with Amazon they consider this transferring money between accounts or funneling money. Which makes no sense to me.
Anyone else have this issue ? Or any idea how to reinstate my account?
Good luck getting your money back, altho it doesn’t sound like you’re optimistic. I’m curious: if you knew this was a threat, why did you accumulate so much GC $ in your AZN account? Not criticizing: just asking.
I don’t know. Got complacent maybe thinking they wouldn’t axe me again. I was just accumulating it because I didn’t know what to buy and was saving up.
Sorry to hear that V. Gift card churning just looks too much like money laundering. No company wants the risk of a headline some day that they were laundering money for a cartel and did nothing about it. They would much rather wrongly punish people to avoid that risk.
I’m sorry this happened to you. Good luck trying to get your monies back.
It’s probably this statement that got you
Use a gift card as payment for orders placed for commercial reasons (i.e. sourcing inventory online). That is, you may not use our Amazon.com Gift Cards to fulfill sales or fund purchases that you are making with the intent of reselling or exporting the goods or services.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201937200
Exactly my thought.
People say they get shut down for high gc balance but it’s usually not that. Either you were buying gcs second hand (against their terms) or you were buying products with the gcs with the intent to resell (against their terms).
What I don’t understand is why you buy amazing gcs at grocery then buy bby at Amazon. Why not just buy the BBY at grocery?