Amazon Gift Voucher Complaint

bazza2000_2

I’m absolutely disgusted with how Amazon has handled my gift voucher issue.

My sister gave me an Amazon gift card as a birthday present, but when I went to redeem it, the code was completely unreadable.  I initially thought it had been damaged when I opened the card, but on further inspection it looks like some of the code has been scraped off.

I contacted Amazon Customer Service and their Gift Card Escalations Team, expecting them to help verify the card or check its activation status. Instead, I was told the card had already been used and that a refund or replacement wasn’t possible.

To make things worse, they implied that someone in my own family might have redeemed it, yet refused to provide any evidence or details due to “data protection.”

It’s disgraceful that Amazon can take this stance — offering no transparency, no investigation, and no accountability. A company of their size shouldn’t be dismissing genuine customers like this, especially when tampered or damaged gift cards can still end up being sold.

Has anyone else had a similar experience or found a way to escalate this beyond Amazon’s standard support, such as through UK consumer rights channels, the Ombudsman, or legal routes?

elsien

As it was your sister who bought the gift card, then it needs to be your sister who takes up the query with Amazon. As she was the customer, she may get further with information about when the card is alleged to have been used. 

MattMattMattUK

bazza2000_2 said:

I’m absolutely disgusted with how Amazon has handled my gift voucher issue.

My sister gave me an Amazon gift card as a birthday present, but when I went to redeem it, the code was completely unreadable.  I initially thought it had been damaged when I opened the card, but on further inspection it looks like some of the code has been scraped off.

I contacted Amazon Customer Service and their Gift Card Escalations Team, expecting them to help verify the card or check its activation status. Instead, I was told the card had already been used and that a refund or replacement wasn’t possible.

To make things worse, they implied that someone in my own family might have redeemed it, yet refused to provide any evidence or details due to “data protection.”

It’s disgraceful that Amazon can take this stance — offering no transparency, no investigation, and no accountability. A company of their size shouldn’t be dismissing genuine customers like this, especially when tampered or damaged gift cards can still end up being sold.

Has anyone else had a similar experience or found a way to escalate this beyond Amazon’s standard support, such as through UK consumer rights channels, the Ombudsman, or legal routes?

As Elsien says you have no consumer rights as you did not make the purchase. 

The comment about the data they have will be because it has either been redeemed by someone at the same address as you, the purchaser, or because the account it was redeemed against shares the same name. Unfortunately they will not give that information out to anyone but the police due to data protection requirements.

Boohoo

How was the card bought and from where?

There has been a lot of stories in the media about physical gift cards being tampered with and then put back onto the shelves and the people doing the tampering using the codes to buy stuff.

Your sister should go to the store( if it was bought from one) and see if anything can be done.

As for Amazon taking this stance they must get thousands of customers complaining about this and why should they pay out with out investigating things 1st.

Also as you may be aware if you get a refund Amazon may close your account.

born_again

If you are going to buy a gift card. Buy it from the company the card is for. Far easier to trace any problems.
If it bought via a 3rd party. How are Amazon to trace where it might have happened.🤷‍♀️

powerful_Rogue

Sounds like Amazon have been pretty helpful and transparent about the issue. As they say, you need to look a bit closer to home for the issue.

Aylesbury_Duck

It sounds like you need to speak to your sister or other family members first, to rule out a simple error on their part, or something else.  It's too early to be disgusted with amazon and be wanting to take legal or ombudsman action.

bazza2000_2

Boohoo said:

How was the card bought and from where?

There has been a lot of stories in the media about physical gift cards being tampered with and then put back onto the shelves and the people doing the tampering using the codes to buy stuff.

Your sister should go to the store( if it was bought from one) and see if anything can be done.

As for Amazon taking this stance they must get thousands of customers complaining about this and why should they pay out with out investigating things 1st.

Also as you may be aware if you get a refund Amazon may close your account.

The card was purchased from a Tesco store, which uses the standard process where the card isn’t activated until it’s scanned and paid for at the checkout. My best guess is that someone had previously taken the card off the shelf, opened it, noted down the redemption code, then resealed it and put it back. Once that tampered card is legitimately purchased and activated, the fraudster likely checks periodically until they can redeem the balance — usually before the card is even gifted, which could be within a few hours or days.

I’ve already spoken to Tesco, and they’ve said this is an issue for Amazon to resolve.

As for Amazon’s “investigation,” their email states they’ve looked into it but refuse to provide any details — instead, they claim the card was redeemed by someone in my family. I find that impossible to believe, as I’m the only person left in my family with my surname.

Regarding your comment about Amazon potentially closing my account — I’m not sure why that would happen. This isn’t related to anything on my Amazon account. It’s a physical gift card purchased from a store; the only connection to my account is that I was the one attempting to redeem it. Could you clarify why Amazon would close an account in this situation?

bazza2000_2

born_again said:

If you are going to buy a gift card. Buy it from the company the card is for. Far easier to trace any problems.
If it bought via a 3rd party. How are Amazon to trace where it might have happened.🤷‍♀️

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Unfortunately, most people assume that buying a gift card from a major supermarket — one of Amazon’s own authorised retail partners — would be perfectly safe. It’s not exactly unreasonable to expect that both Amazon and the retailer have basic safeguards in place to prevent this sort of fraud.

The bigger issue here is that Amazon makes an enormous amount of money from the sale of gift cards, yet seems to take very little responsibility when things go wrong. If they’re aware this type of tampering is happening (as the media reports and customer complaints clearly suggest), you’d think they’d have introduced better systems to protect customers by now, rather than simply shifting the blame back to whoever happens to be holding the card when it fails to redeem.

bazza2000_2

It’s interesting reading through the replies here — the general sentiment seems to have shifted over the years. It now feels as though when something like this happens, the assumption is that the customer must somehow be at fault for simply doing what millions of people do every day: buying or receiving a gift card in good faith.

I completely understand healthy scepticism and the need for companies to investigate potential fraud, but it’s disappointing to see how normalised it’s become to place the blame back on the consumer, even when there’s clear evidence that this kind of tampering and misuse is widespread.

I’m not asking anyone to take my word for it — just look at the tone of the responses. It’s as if expecting a large company like Amazon to take some responsibility for a known issue is now seen as unreasonable. That in itself says a lot about how things have changed.

powerful_Rogue

bazza2000_2 said:

Boohoo said:

How was the card bought and from where?

There has been a lot of stories in the media about physical gift cards being tampered with and then put back onto the shelves and the people doing the tampering using the codes to buy stuff.

Your sister should go to the store( if it was bought from one) and see if anything can be done.

As for Amazon taking this stance they must get thousands of customers complaining about this and why should they pay out with out investigating things 1st.

Also as you may be aware if you get a refund Amazon may close your account.

As for Amazon’s “investigation,” their email states they’ve looked into it but refuse to provide any details — instead, they claim the card was redeemed by someone in my family. I find that impossible to believe, as I’m the only person left in my family with my surname.

I don't think Amazon would just make that up. There clearly is a link on the Amazon systems between yourself and someone else that used the card. Quite rightly they can't disclose the actual information to yourself due to GDPR.

There is no ombudsman that covers Amazon. Consumer rights will be against Tesco, however they will contact Amazon who will defend it using that someone associated to your account has redeemed the voucher.

That leaves taking Tesco to small claims court. Potentially then Amazon might divulge to the court who redeemed it. Regardless, this would all have to be done by your sister as she is the consumer.