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Post in Customer Support
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Sephora plastic gift card scam!

NEVER EVER BUY Sephora gift cards for yourself or for anyone else. You've been warned! There's a scam going on where they will sweep your gift card issue under the rug as Lost or Stolen card, which they then will not reimburse you the money. So here's the story, I received a $50 Sephora GC from a friend for Christmas of 2022. It's now July 2023 and I decided to use the card to buy something. So I scratched the bar code to put in the card # and pin to find out the card only has $9 and some change. I called customer service and was transferred back and forth, and at the end of the phone conversation, the rep told me that there are people out there who scan the new empty gift cards and waited for the cards to get funded and would steal money this way. The rep told me that they will email me back and let me know what they find. After hearing her say that I felt somewhat relief about the fact that they are aware there are some shady stuff  going on in their gift cards department. Guess what? Sephora never got back to me like promised. So I contacted them through chat and long story short, the rep now said my GC was report as lost or stolen from the phone conversation! She then had the audacity to say my friend must've given me a used gift card. When I refused to let go of the issue since my gift card was not lost or stolen and the idea of my friend gave me a used card was out of the question, the rep closed the chat window on me!!!  This was not the first time I had issues with gift cards from sephora but this recent incident was over the top! The fact that they recorded false info and refused to retify their mistakes is bad business! They chose to solve my GC problem by closing the chat window and swept my GC SCAM under their lost/stolen  umbrella. Talking about shady business, Sephora. You've lost a long time customer forever! I will also spread the words for people  to not shop at Sephora as well!

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Re: Sephora plastic gift card scam!

Agree. Just faced tge same issue and they are refusing to take ownership and pushing me between departments refusing ti get management involved and keep repeating their terms and conditions. The rep even stated that it happened to her as well and she "accepted" the rules and moved on and that I won't go anywhere with this.this is absurd never ever buy a gift card from sephora and spreading the word to my friends we are all about getting gift cards to sephora since we were all customers ti a company that we thought protects its customers but apparently since they get their money they don't secure their cards enough and not willing to help you if it is stolen.  I have also reported then to FTC and encourage any victim for such a scan to report it as well

Re: Sephora plastic gift card scam!

My thought is it has to be an employee. Who else has access to the card and PIN number combinations? I bought a gift card for my daughter for Christmas and we just tried to use it for her birthday. $0 left on it. I called Sephora and found out that a day or two after I purchased the gift card, someone used it to order online. It was like they were notified that funds were added to that card. Anyway, Sephora told me that it is a major problem and people are constantly calling to report the problem and that there is nothing they were going to do about it. I get that I had money stolen from me and they aren’t liable for it. HOWEVER, it would go a long way to show your customers that you truly care about what they are going through ESPECIALLY when it is a known issue. I was embarrassed as hell at the store when they explained how people grab gift cards and don’t put funds on them and give them as gifts. This is all while my daughter is standing there confused because I gave her the gift card. I know nothing will come from this, I have contacted Sephora regarding this a couple of different ways and, NOTHING. I will be shopping elsewhere in the future. I know that means nothing to Sephora but it means everything to me.

Re: Sephora plastic gift card scam!

I am experiencing the same issue. They went as far as to say I placed an order and it was shipped to my address. Not true as I literally was saving the gift card for the Kora Organics eye brightener which just came back into stock this morning. Of course it’s out of stock now and I’m out of my $100 GC I received for my birthday. I scratched off to reveal the card number and pin this morning to make a purchase but there were only .12 cents left on the card. 

Re: Sephora plastic gift card scam!

Hi @Etran,

 

I'm sorry to hear about this! Thank you for reaching out to us. I'll send you a message shortly.

 

Best regards,

Laurie 

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