goWholesale

Has anyone heard of gift cards (Target, Walmart, Banana Republic, Best Buy, etc.) being sold by third party companies at discounted rates? I have someone using our shopping cart system, selling (for example) Neiman Marcus $500 Gift Cards for $350.

Is this a scam? I have never heard of gift cards being sold by 3rd party companies for less than face value.

There is a club that sells you gift cards for like 20% off, cant remember the name, but it costs you $80 per year and limits how many you can buy.

My guess is that these are stolen or something, probably by an employee as they require activation.

Check out:

http://www.dealpass.com/home.asp
http://essentials123.com/essentials/index.asp

These are perfectly legit programs, you just have to follow through with cancellation.

If you don't want to pay the annual fee, just cancel within the first 30 days.

Advice: Sign up near the middle of the month as the credit to your card comes on the 1st of the next month. Don't sign up on the 28th or 29th and expect to get the credit on the 1st of the next month as the credit only comes after the program has the charge posted to your CC account AND the CC company has "deposited" those funds into their merchant account (which could be 4-5 bus days combined). I have bought over $2000 of GCs and paid $1602 for them. The 30 day membership at that time was $1 (had 2 different accounts).

Just a quick note here, the auction you posted is ended and the user got naru'd. These are HIGHLY against ebay policy as it allows you to purchase something off ebay, and that's big no no to them. I think they are stolen too, otherwise the person would just spend the card and sell the stuff themselfs. OR it is some mlm, or membership bs. I'd like to hear more on this though.

Neon,
I spoke to my wife today regarding these and she told me not to even bother checking into it. It was her way of saying NO WAY, period. The only way to obtain these Target gift cards are by purchasing an item that gives you a free dollar amount on the card when you purchase that particular item. You choose the card and it is activated electronically when the register rings up your purchase for that particular item. It doesn't matter what color, style, etc. of card, it will activate whatever the bar code on the item you purchased allows it enter price the value at.

I have suspended this particular 411Shop for now. There were approx. 15 orders from the site in the last 2 days. I do not want people to be getting ripped off.

SG,
I imagine they must be redeemable or the guy would have tons of negative feedback. Whether Target knows the whole story behind this or how it works out in the end would be interesting. Maybe I'll copy this thread and send it on to Corp. where it can be seen by higher up people. You know none of these stores want bad publicity.
From what I've seen posted, it appears that the club as it's referred to is profiting on these. I would be interested to know how it works, but don't get suckered into these types of things.
Funny how the person selling in this auction is getting out. I wouldn't touch it as a buyer or seller.

BKenn01 wrote: They also limit the amount of Target cars and others to like $200 per year. In other words they come out ahead on most people.

I doubt this is the case...This guy is selling $1000 gift cards for $700, etc. and charging only $2.50 on ebay for the right to view the site. Sound like fraud to me!

there is a search engine on the state of kentucky website where you can look up business names when you are starting a business so you don't duplicate an existing business name and this one didn't show up. They could have incororated in another state, but they would still have to be registered in kentucky to do business. I am curious to see if they could produce a legit copy of their Articles Of Incorporation and tax id (EIN). You have to have both of them to operate a business as a corporation. Or in there case a LLC.

finitydream keep me posted on the matter as well because I am very intrested on how this is going to end..

For those who believe that the companies (Target, Home Depot, Circuit City, etc) don't know exactly what's going on, that's hard for me believe considering the following information. Linens n Things actually advertsies Dealpass on their website under "Special Offers" at http://www.lnt.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=1347495&clickid=body_aspot1_txt. Search for Dealpass, then click on the "view more details" link and it directs you to the Dealpass website. Dealpass.com's parent company, MemberWorks Inc, is a registered stock on the NASDAQ (MBRS). Check out http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040401/15786_1.html for their company description.

I'm not sure if people are questioning whether the clubs (such as Dealpass.com, backporch.com, essentials123.com) are legit, but they definetely are. And they're not just making profit when someone pays the yearly/monthly membership fee (they are getting the cards at less than 80% face value with very low profit margins but sell mass quantities).

Just because a company is doing great sales doesn't mean they won't offer great discounts. Just look at OfficeMax, Staples, Office Depot, and Bed, Bath and Beyond (plus many others) who regularly offer coupons varying from 20% to 40% off on-going. They're not taking a net loss because of the coupon used by its customers...Just as they're not taking a net loss on the gift cards they sell below face value (to membership clubs). The clubs are a marketing ploy to generate traffic just like the coupons.