Gift Card Balance says $0

[CecileJudy]

I got a $50 gift card Last Christmas and scratched it off today to use. The balance say $0 when I inputted it, but that makes no sense. I called customer service and they told me to tell whoever purchased it to contact their bank. Why would they need to contact their bank from a purchase made at their store? This is incredibly frustrating and based on a bunch of other reviews, there has been barely any action taken to remediate this problem. I plan to take further action if need be.

[LiFi47]

The same thing happened to me. I bought a $75 gift card in person at a Sephora store, and gave it as a gift. When the recipient went to use it a few days later she scratched off the numbers on the back in store but the balance was already $0 at the cash register. I got the gift card back from her and took it back to the original Sephora I bought it from with my receipt, but they weren't able to do anything except confirm there was $0 on the card. I called the Sephora customer service line 3 times and each time they said the only thing I could do was issue a chargeback on my credit card! They wouldn't tell me what transactions were on the gift card or where it was spent and they can't do a refund.

I don't know if it was a mistake by one of the cashiers, or fraud by scammers but this seems to be a huge problem not being addressed. I'm not sure why gift cards are still allowed to be sold if a huge percentage of buyers get scammed out of their money. I paid $75 and got $0 of goods in return so I disputed the Sephora charge with my credit card. It sucks, there has to be a better way than allowing loyal customers to get scammed.

[LaurieBT]

@CecileJudy, I'm sorry to hear this! It looks like your private messages are turned off, and you can adjust your preferences in your Community settings (on the browser only, not the app). If you would like to send me a private message with more information, I'll look into this. 

[HKBroadbent]

LauriBT-

Then same thing happened to my daughter today. We checked the card balance on line and it had $150. She went immediately to the store to use it and it they said it was $0 balance. I called and they said it had been used online at the exact time we were checking the balance. 

I was only told to dispute the charge with the credit card company, however the card was a gift.

Terribly disappointed. Please help!