Amazon Gift Card Expiration

Mark1888

Hi,

I'm writing about an old post I saw on this forum about Amazon gift cards expiring:

moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=603354 (It doesn't allow me to post links)

I have found myself in the exact same situation the OP describes in that post! My girlfriend was saving her giftcards for Christmas, and recently logged in to see some of them have "expired". She has lost £600 because of this ridiculous rule Amazon have. They made no attempt to warn her about the expiration, no emails, nothing.

The OP said he managed to get Amazon to refund the money so that his girlfriend could spend it. I tried to PM him but his message box is full. So I was wondering if anyone else has ever been in this situation? Also, if anyone has any tips on how I could get them to do the same for us?

We are contacting them about this situation, but I'm not sure if they will care. I can't believe they are allowed to blatantly steal our money without telling us. It's not as if we can spend the money elsewhere!

Anyway, I hope someone will get back to me. I would really appreciate some help here. Thank you for your time.

Regards,
Mark

snozberry

I'm not being funny, but the onus is on her to be more organised and know when they run out. If your gift card account didn't clearly state the expiration dates then, fair enough, but they do. It tells you, in black and white, when they run out and I know this because I have an Amazon gift account as well. Why should Amazon have to run around and remind people about their balance? She should have marked the dates on a calendar or something.

lucy03

A friend of mine had 100 pounds or so, he just contacted them politely and they reactivated them for him. It's not a rare rule for gift cards and vouchers, many companies have similar rules, and these are laid out on the site.

Valli

When you contact them, explain why she hasn't yet spent the money and ask them, in the politest terms you can manage, to re-activate the amount.
Once you have done this I suggest you spend the money as soon as possible.

It is usual for gift cards to have an expiry date, however, for some cards merely checking the balance from time to time will keep them active (think the T&Cs refer to last use, which usually means last balance check)

HOWEVER, this week we have seen yet another major retailer go into administration; so often, when this happens those holding gift cards become unsecured creditors and lose their money. Gift cards are not the same as cold, hard cash.

Anyway, good luck with Amazon.

Mark1888

We were sure that the expiration date was the amount of time you have to claim the gift card and add it to your balance. It makes no sense to me that an electronic gift card balance can expire. We never knew we should be checking that balance constantly. She hadn't logged into her account for a few months because she was waiting for Christmas.

However, thank you for your advice. We will politely ask them to refund the money and say we will spend it soon.

visidigi

Mark1888 wrote: »

I can't believe they are allowed to blatantly steal our money without telling us. It's not as if we can spend the money elsewhere!

People really need to consider what they say before they say it.

You haven't even contacted Amazon, or even discussed it and yet you accuse them of theft in a very public place.

As others have said, the onus is on you, but speak to them, they usually have very good customer services.

Mark1888

Apologies, I should of explained in the original post that my girlfriend already did contact them. She explained everything to them and was told "Our investigations team will look at it and we'll get back to you in 24 hours". We never heard from them.

I just don't understand why they can't simply email us about the balance expiring soon. They email us about deals and promotions almost every day, trying to get us to spend more, but they can't tell us we're about to lose our money.

Fella

Stealing is certainly not too strong a word. It's a disgrace that Amazon have been getting away with this for so long & IMO a certainty that they are quietly making millions each year screwing UK customers in this way.

Here's what I can remember from when we dealt with them:

In terms of how we dealt with it, we managed to speak to someone & they agreed to reinstate. We would certainly have not taken no for an answer so if they don't comply straightaway I'd definitely recommend the OP persists.

Legally afaik this is a grey area because gift card expiry has never been tested in a British court (that was the case when I read up on it at the time anyway). Clearly it's utterly immoral & has been stated before, there is no way on the Amazon site to see when a gift balance expires (or what part of it is due to expire & when). It's neither acceptable or reasonable to expect customers to "remember" the exact expiry dates of various parts of an online gift balance. As has also been stated before, the entire concept of expiring an ONLINE gift balance is utterly indefensible. It's bad enough with paper/card based systems but at least the stores who expire them have some tiny defence based around the hassle of administering obsolete systems. Amazon do not have that defence.

I gather that this is NOT the case on Amazon.com (or at least not for US customers). It was previously but Amazon changed their rules, presumably because they were faced with legal challenges they were sure they would lose, or because of bad publicity, or both.

Nevertheless they continue to happily screw UK customers.

I would like to see Moneysavingexpert take up this cause and at the very least bring it to the attention of all the poor sods out there who's vouchers are being quietly stolen by Amazon. At best they might even get them to change the way this works.

Good luck OP, I hope you get your money back.

Fella

One of the articles I read at the time:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/apr/29/consumernews.moneysupplement

wealdroam

Fella wrote: »

Clearly it's utterly immoral & has been stated before, there is no way on the Amazon site to see when a gift balance expires (or what part of it is due to expire & when). It's neither acceptable or reasonable to expect customers to "remember" the exact expiry dates of various parts of an online gift balance.

Care to point out where it "has been stated before".

The reason I ask is that we were told in post #2...

snozberry wrote: »

If your gift card account didn't clearly state the expiration dates then, fair enough, but they do. It tells you, in black and white, when they run out and I know this because I have an Amazon gift account as well.

Fella wrote: »

Nevertheless they continue to happily screw UK customers.

Hang on...

You have already told us...

Fella wrote: »

...we managed to speak to someone & they agreed to reinstate.

Doesn't sound like they took advantage, does it?


Ah... you are telling us what might have happened over six years ago.
From the link you supplied...

The_Guardian wrote:

The Guardian, Saturday 29 April 2006

Fella

wealdroam wrote: »

Care to point out where it "has been stated before".

In my original thread on this topic that the OP referenced at the beginning.

wealdroam wrote: »

The reason I ask is that we were told in post #2...

Nope, that's referring to something different, i.e. the text of the email that is sent when someone buys a gift voucher. Once a voucher is redeemed, as I already correctly said, there is no way on the Amazon site to see when any part of a total gift certificate balance is due to expire.

wealdroam wrote: »

Doesn't sound like they took advantage, does it?

Of course it does. By your logic if you caught someone stealing your goods, and once caught they agreed to give them back, they would have done nothing wrong.

wealdroam wrote: »

Ah... you are telling us what might have happened over six years ago.
From the link you supplied...

If you spend a couple of minutes googling you'll see the situation is still the same today.