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Amazon eGift cards purchased at bestbuy.com in December 2024 may not work $200
March 1, 2025 at
10:28 AM
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Flowers & Gifts
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Last Edited by everestsun March 2, 2025 at 01:41 PM$200.00
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/amaz...Id=65451
If you have purchased Amazon eGift cards from bestbuy.com in December of 2024 and have not redeemed them yet, please redeem them as soon as possible.
I have purchased $250 Amazon eGift cards ($50+$200) from bestbuy.com in December of 2024 when Paypal had a reward promotion. Many SDers may have done the same as the deal was in the front page of SD.
While the $50 card was redeemed successfully at Amazon in January, my $200 card redemption attempt last week gave me an error message that it has been already redeemed in another account. Since this is an eGift card not physical card and I have never shared the code with anyone and Best Buy does not include the code in the email, the code was most likely compromised from the servers or stolen by the workers of Amazon or Best Buy.
I have been communicating with both Best Buy and Amazon for a week, neither of them provided any help. They simply asked me to talk to the other party. Best Buy said that they have no visibility of Amazon eGift card status. Amazon not only refused to send a replacement but also refused to provide redemption date. I am working with Chase Visa card to dispute the charge and push Best Buy to contact Amazon on my behalf.
If you find your Amazon eGift cards purchased from bestbuy.com were also compromised, please push Best Buy to contact Amazon on your behalf. Amazon ticket support team only copied and pasted the scripted nonsense. They never answered my questions.
I used to think eGift cards are safer as thieves can't steal them in store. That is not the case with Amazon eGift cards. From my interaction with them this time, I found it is actually harder to get Amazon to help with eGift card issues, perhaps because they cannot blame on store thieves.
Latest response from Amazon on 3/1/2025:
--- Upon checking, this gift card has been claimed and used by someone other than the intended recipient.
I'm not able to resend the gift card or refund the order.
For confidentiality reasons, I'm unable to explain further about the gift card claimed account or when it was claimed. ---
If you have purchased Amazon eGift cards from bestbuy.com in December of 2024 and have not redeemed them yet, please redeem them as soon as possible.
I have purchased $250 Amazon eGift cards ($50+$200) from bestbuy.com in December of 2024 when Paypal had a reward promotion. Many SDers may have done the same as the deal was in the front page of SD.
While the $50 card was redeemed successfully at Amazon in January, my $200 card redemption attempt last week gave me an error message that it has been already redeemed in another account. Since this is an eGift card not physical card and I have never shared the code with anyone and Best Buy does not include the code in the email, the code was most likely compromised from the servers or stolen by the workers of Amazon or Best Buy.
I have been communicating with both Best Buy and Amazon for a week, neither of them provided any help. They simply asked me to talk to the other party. Best Buy said that they have no visibility of Amazon eGift card status. Amazon not only refused to send a replacement but also refused to provide redemption date. I am working with Chase Visa card to dispute the charge and push Best Buy to contact Amazon on my behalf.
If you find your Amazon eGift cards purchased from bestbuy.com were also compromised, please push Best Buy to contact Amazon on your behalf. Amazon ticket support team only copied and pasted the scripted nonsense. They never answered my questions.
I used to think eGift cards are safer as thieves can't steal them in store. That is not the case with Amazon eGift cards. From my interaction with them this time, I found it is actually harder to get Amazon to help with eGift card issues, perhaps because they cannot blame on store thieves.
Latest response from Amazon on 3/1/2025:
--- Upon checking, this gift card has been claimed and used by someone other than the intended recipient.
I'm not able to resend the gift card or refund the order.
For confidentiality reasons, I'm unable to explain further about the gift card claimed account or when it was claimed. ---
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I had a similar experience with an Instacart EGC I bought through Best Buy's site. I held onto it for about two months, and when I tried to redeem it, it showed as invalid. Instacart told me to reach out to Best Buy, and Best Buy told me to contact Instacart. Neither side budged until I mentioned I would involve the CFPB. Only then did Best Buy agree to issue a full refund for the non-working card.
In my case, the card was never redeemed; it was just marked as invalid. It seems like you may need to push a little harder to get your money back if Chase doesn't approve your chargeback.
Thanks for sharing your experience, and I hope you get a positive resolution soon.
I had a similar experience with an Instacart EGC I bought through Best Buy's site. I held onto it for about two months, and when I tried to redeem it, it showed as invalid. Instacart told me to reach out to Best Buy, and Best Buy told me to contact Instacart. Neither side budged until I mentioned I would involve the CFPB. Only then did Best Buy agree to issue a full refund for the non-working card.
In my case, the card was never redeemed; it was just marked as invalid. It seems like you may need to push a little harder to get your money back if Chase doesn't approve your chargeback.
Thanks for sharing your experience, and I hope you get a positive resolution soon.
For Amazon gift cards, if it is a physical card, it has a 16-digit serial number in the back. A phone support staff can search by the serial number and find out the status of a gift card as stored in their database and immediately know if it is redeemed or invalid. But for an eGift card, there is no serial number available. Based on what the phone support person told me, redemption code cannot be used to search the status of a gift card. It can only be used on redemption interface. That's why she opened a ticket trying to get the 2nd level support team to help. It appears that the (outsourced) 2nd level support team showed zero willingness to help and only sent me a bunch of scripted nonsense without answering my questions. I don't even know if they have located this gift card in their database.
I was not able to check my gift card balance prior to redeeming it because Amazon no longer provides that option.
Also Amazon has a very weird ticketing system setup. Most companies use one ticket number for each customer issue and assign one person to work on each customer issue. Amazon uses one ticket number for each incoming email reply as I was told by the phone support staff. Every time I replied to an email from Amazon and asked a question, my reply became a new ticket and assigned to a different person. I ended up communicating with 5 different people on email who did not know what was going on and simply sent me more scripted nonsense.
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--- Upon checking, this gift card has been claimed and used by someone other than the intended recipient.
I'm not able to resend the gift card or refund the order.
For confidentiality reasons, I'm unable to explain further about the gift card claimed account or when it was claimed. ---
This is very odd. From what I read on Reddit and other sites, previously Amazon usually shared the redemption date with the gift card purchaser though they did not reveal which account. When I had issues with other gift cards such as Walmart and Wholefoods, I was always provided with the redemption/usage date information. Why would Amazon want to hide redemption date now?
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that I have the right to be informed. It appears that 2025 is the year that rich people and rich enterprises can be above the law.