Gift Card Scam

[heaty]

I received a gift card for Christmas and have been saving it for the current sale going on. I was too nervous to add it to my Sephora account because my account was hacked a couple of years ago and the hacker tried to use my credit card to buy $500 worth of products. I finally tried to add it today and got an error saying it had a zero balance. 

I reached out to customer support over the phone and was told the card was purchased at Albertsons which means it’s through a 3rd party called Incomm. I was given their phone number so I reached out and got the ethics department?? They directed me to the customer service section of the website which says to reach out to the BRAND for brand specific cards. 

I then found a number on the back of the card for the Sephora gc department. Apparently they can only help with gc balance. They said to call customer service again. So I did. The rep was able to tell me that the gift card was used on 12/28 on the other side of the US from where I’m at. He said Sephora treats gift cards like cash and couldn’t do anything else about it. 

I found hundreds of other posts here having the same issue and even more on google and Reddit. I’m super disappointed in Sephora after the account hack and now this. Can Sephora do something to prevent this in the future?? 

[dianagarcia79]

Unused, unscratched Sephora gift cards with $0 balance, fraudulently used online!

Sephora is doing nothing to help us. Let’s report them to the FTC and to the BBB … we don’t deserve to be cheated!
 I am all in for a class action lawsuit. 
And let’s take this to Twitter. We’ll make them take responsibility.

THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF US!!


[Joanniez]

Same thing happened to me, Sephora did nothing and will do nothing to protect customers that spend a lot of money in their stores my friend who bought the gift card for me is rouge. 

[dianagarcia79]

Unused, unscratched Sephora gift cards with $0 balance, fraudulently used online!

Sephora is doing nothing to help us. Let’s report them to the FTC and to the BBB … we don’t deserve to be cheated!
 I am all in for a class action lawsuit. 
And let’s take this to Twitter. We’ll make them take responsibility.

THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF US!!


[heaty]

Agreed! The DM I received about this was useless. They told me “once activated, the gift card is equivalent of cash and cannot be replaced if lost or stolen. We recommend checking in with the person who gifted you the card since we’re showing the card has a zero balance.”

First of all, my boss gave me the gc at Christmas and that’s awkward so not gonna do that. Second, what would that even accomplish?! So frustrating. I ended up just not placing an order.

[DaneeBT]

@heaty I'm so sorry about this! I'll send you a PM.