I’ve seen so many examples of this working I’m shocked they don’t teach it in school. Big companies rarely ever want the kind of negative publicity they get when a disgruntled customer contacts the media. Dear Fixer: I bought a $60 gift card at a Target store in San Diego for a friend who let […]
Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category
I’ve heard of worse things to do with unwanted gift cards (like letting them sit around and expire). In conjunction with Plastic Jungle, United Airlines is accepting gift cards with at least $25 in value in exchange for miles. So what will a gift card get you? According to this story (but ignore their incorrect […]
The old adage “if it sounds too good to be true, it is” clearly applies in this example of SPAM text messages claiming gift cards at a highly discounted rate. There are several red-flags that show this type of advertisement is likely a scam: Unsolicited telemarketing via automated messages is illegal. This includes unsolicited telemarketing […]
Reader Phyllis asks: My brother gave me a mastercard debit card for 50.00. His wife paid the 4.95 activation fee upfront. However, when i went to use it at a restaurant, they said only 40.00 could be gotten through. I have tried numerous times to redeem the remaining 10.00 to no avail. What can be […]
pickpunch.com
We welcome any publicity that helps people find the plethora of helpful information on gift cards our site provides for consumers, even if it is incorrect. The Today Show mentioned us this morning as a gift card comparison shopping site, which we are not, but our resources page will help you find all the gift […]
We recently took a fresh look at CardAvenue which changed its business model from a strict secondary marketplace to a gift card registry and secondary marketplace listing aggregator, which lists gift cards for sale at a discount from many of the secondary marketplaces. As one of the reasons we started this site was to help […]
That retailers are realizing they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making gift cards easier for consumers to use is what I’m taking from this piece on Cardpool’s new service (now in limited release to existing Cardpool customers) that allows you to buy gift cards, and have them immediately delivered to your […]
Square, the mobile payments system that uses a small (yes, square) attachment for an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone to swipe credit cards for payment, appears to be an ideal device and system for draining your open-loop cards. There is no monthly or annual fee, and swipes cost a flat 2.75%. Account signup and approval […]
One of the keys to using up your gift cards is remembering to use them. Some people keep them in their wallets so they have them whenever they are at the store the gift cards are drawn upon, but this method has largely been a failure for me as I can just as easily forget […]
I’ve commented several times over the last year or more that what would be REALLY useful is a site that searches all the gift card secondary marketplaces for the best deal. And finally today we have Cardnap, which does exactly that. As the blog Lifehacker reports: Cardnap’s primary function is to report on the best […]
Contacting the consumer advocate at your local newspaper or TV station can be a great way to get a company that is shirking its legal, moral, or ethical obligations to pay attention and do the right thing. So I pay attention to those consumer advocates with great interest to see what publicly shamed company is […]
I’m not the kind of person who throws all my change in a jar and then looks to cash it in every five years, but if you are, you’ve undoubtedly come across one of the 17,000 Coinstar automated coin counting machines where you can simply dump your coins in and get cash, at a cost […]
Here is a great tip from Lifehacker on draining the last few dollars from your open-loop (Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover) gift card buy buying Amazon.com gift bucks. The problem with Visa/AMEX gift cards is that it’s difficult to spend every cent. It usually takes several transactions to whittle away the majority of the gift card’s value. Once the […]
Insight into gift and prepaid cards comes from many places, and today’s information courtesy of a Wall Street Journal article on the prepaid debit card industry: Yet customer and processing fees generate only about $11 a month in revenue per active card for NetSpend, estimates analyst Gil Luria of Wedbush Securities. And the average NetSpend […]
With mail-in rebates, the odds are against you from the start. My own experience is that I only get an actual response to a mail-in rebate about half the time, even if I have done everything right. Then rebates started to appear as Visa/MasterCard cards, with none of the protections of most state laws or […]
I’ve seen reports previously about telephone scams where thieves call people and tell them there is a problem with their bank account and they need to verify information. People seem to trust that a phone call is legitimate and readily hand over personal information, including account numbers and passwords. The results of this of course […]
It is nice when someone takes a concept and creates a new way of understanding it, which is what Mint.com has done with gift cards in their Mintlife blog. We often buy gift cards because they are convenient and we aren’t aware of all the potential pitfalls, which have understandably gotten fewer over the last […]
Technology often creates problems. With the advent of gift cards and the electronic systems behind them, came the potential for problems and abuse. We’ve seen plenty of examples of where technology has been used against retailers and consumers such as in the fraudulent cloning of gift cards and siphoning of their funds. What you may […]
Restaurant.com offers discounted restaurant gift certificates. A typical deal might be a $25 gift certificates for $10. My wife and I have purchased discounted restaurant gift certificates from Restaurant.com before and have not had problems. But, according to a recent ABC News story, some people using these certificates are having problems, and it seems that […]
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