Birthday Gift Cards

Spoiler Alert: This post is about a birthday, but more so an accounting of what happened to a birthday gift sent to the celebrant. This incident was a first for us, but is now a case of Buyer Beware. It's a gift we won't be repeating in future as alternate gift plans will be made.

Family celebrations continued this month. After Grenville's mid-July birthday, the next birthday was for the oldest granddaughter who celebrated her 11th birthday last week.

This year, we did not visit on her actual birthday as she and her brother would be away on a camping trip. Our visit will follow soon. 

Her mom told us that she didn't specify any specific gifts, with a suggestion to send gift cards. Gift cards were purchased, then mailed with some gifts. 

Not sure about anyone else, but every time I purchase a gift card, there's always been the concern — what if it doesn't arrive or work for the recipient?

Be careful about such thoughts . . .

The package arrived safely, but after the gift cards were tried, she let us know that the claim code on the back of the Amazon gift card would not work. Her mother confirmed this issue as well.

What to do next?

Still had the CVS receipt which showed that both gift card purchases had been activated, plus a notice that no refunds were given, once activated. A call to CVS and talk with a store manager confirmed the store had no responsibility for a non-working gift card activated there. 

I was told to contact Amazon. Yes, you can find a number to call if you poke around online. In some cases, you may have to enter your phone number for a call back, as in my case.

An Amazon representative called me and the process began. Many questions followed, too many to repeat, including what credit card was used to buy the gift card. 

No, that info was not provided as the issue was not with my card, but the gift card. Questions included where it was bought and the activation number, which her mom had provided via a text message. That info was given to Amazon and surprisingly, the claim code would not activate for the Amazon rep as well.

The first Amazon representative (yes, there were a couple) told me an email requesting much of the same information would be sent to my email and provided an email to return the responses. The email came, questions were answered, email sent, message received that the provided email did not accept emails!

That's right, another call to Amazon, another representative, more questions, more answers and FINALLY a request to give the Amazon account number. An explanation that she did not have an account, but used her mom's account and access permission would need to come from her. After providing an email address, Amazon sent her a direct email to request account access. 

More checking by the Amazon rep, most likely to verify that no gift card had been activated in the account.

Eureka !  the Amazon rep said that a gift card credit would be issued for the granddaughter's in her mom's account. We received confirmation from granddaughter and mom that this worked.

Total time for calls to CVS and Amazon — 2 hours, which wasn't how I'd planned to spend my evening, who would?

Lesson learned was not to buy gift cards in future, especially when sending to someone. That's because no matter where a gift card is bought and activated, that store, most likely, won't issue a refund if there's a problem. The responsibility to resolve any issues will go to the card purchaser or recipient to contact and follow-up with the card issuer. 

In some cases, like on the Amazon card, there wasn't a phone number to call, only an email contact in case of gift card scams.

Now, you know, and so do we.