Gift Cards selling for more than their value?

#17
Interesting? Don't know why someone would do that. Now a day, retailers sell giftcards online or through other retailers (like Safeway) so it should be widely available. Besides, it is scary to purchase giftcard with large denotation... lots of scammers out there. Second, buying someone else's giftcard is to SAVE money, not to pay MORE.
 
#18
girliceclimber said:
Around the holidays, you can definitely buy gc's at a discount from places like the grocery store (I think I heard an ad for Ralph's where you bought $50 worth of iTunes gc's for $40). The eBay sellers probably bought them in bulk from the same supplier and are making a decent amount of profit through high turnover.
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Diane d'Poitier said:
Costco does that too, sells discounted gift cards. Or people redeemed credit card points for gift cards and are selling them on ebay for cash.
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I understand why sellers will sell them... I understand why & how sellers could make extra money from the transaction.

What I don't understand is why a buyer would purchase a $100 Best Buy gift card for $115 plus $3.95 shipping. Even a 10% eBay coupon wouldn't take care of the discrepancy in what you paid vs. what you get in return! I mean, couldn't the buyer just as easily get a gift card from BestBuy.com, or from the Best Buy store itself??
 
#19
kells1983 said:
I understand why sellers will sell them... I understand why & how sellers could make extra money from the transaction.

What I don't understand is why a buyer would purchase a $100 Best Buy gift card for $115 plus $3.95 shipping. Even a 10% eBay coupon wouldn't take care of the discrepancy in what you paid vs. what you get in return! I mean, couldn't the buyer just as easily get a gift card from BestBuy.com, or from the Best Buy store itself??
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Oh sorry, I was answering a question someone else posted about why a seller would want to sell for $8 profit on a $50 card.

I agree with everyone else that the buyers are probably located overseas and can't buy from that specific retailer with their overseas credit card. Or maybe they have an eBay gift card that someone gave them that they want to use up.. or maybe they are over-excited/dumb or a scammer.

ETA: Also, if they are overseas the exchange rate might be so favorable that they aren't overpaying in their currency?
 
#20
^^Oh, that makes sense... I get GCs as rewards from my credit card, so I guess I'd consider selling them, if I needed the cash.

And your reasons ("overseas"..."over-excited/dumb or a scammer") make sense also.

I would also think, based on some of the TPF horror story threads about selling GCs, that many buyers might try to scam these sellers anyway (spend the GC as soon as it arrives, then claim SNAD, saying there was no value on it when it arrived). You never know, right?
 
#21
I am sure it is the ebay bucks that people are using to buy these. Ebay bucks were just emailed to ebayers and usable yesterday...good sellers know the timing and list Gift Cards at the same time.
 
#23
I never understood this either. But bidding makes people crazy. As long as they are winning it seems like some people will bid on anything. I would never risk getting a bogus card to save $5 or pay over the value. I don't think paypal protects these transactions.
 
#24
I think, eBay or other online iTunes Gift card suppliers are eligible for those who are from outside USA as, they haven't any store there .. I also buy itunes gift card from my gift card supply in a higher rate .. but honest, they have really good service :smile: again, if you are in USA then you can buy cards in a cheaper rate from grocery shops as girliceclimber said in his reply
 
#25
Aside from the overseas issue, a lot of GC are purchased with stolen credit cards....sold, used without a problem, then later on the stolen CC gets cancelled. Not worth it for the companies to go back and reverse everything - sometimes even unused GC amounts won't get cancelled. This used to happen a lot with Fandango codes/dollars, until Fandango cracked down on it.

Same thing happens a lot with actual items - remember scammers were dropshipping from Walmart and customers got items with Walmart slips enclosed w/ their shipping address and some random billing address....
 
#26
jjjlove said:
I hope this isn't a stupid question, but I've noticed in the past that there are gift cards on eBay that sell for more than the value on them--for ex. a $100 Nordstrom gift card selling for $102.5, and this has always confused me. Is there some kind of rebate program, or a reason people are paying $102.5 for $100?

Or there are also ones like a $500 gift card selling for $499.90--why does the buyer go to the trouble of making a $500 transaction just to save 10 cents? Am I missing something?
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I'm in Sweden, and I buy $25 iTunes cards for $30....

It allows me to have an American iTunes account and
buy American TV shows and movies....
 
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