Money ‘disappearing’ from gift cards; what to know before you buy

It’s about that time of year when many people start holiday shopping. But, there’s a “buyer beware,” for anyone planning to give gift cards.

Depending on the company that makes them, the card purchased may not have a balance or could be left with pennies on it when it comes time to spend it.

“I worked hard for that $175. I push a grocery cart in Giant Eagle,” Betsy Farmer told Channel 11.

All 79-year-old Farmer wants is her $175 back. It’s her hard-hearted money that she put on a Vanilla VISA gift card, only to find out that the card was defective.

When she took a close look at the card she realized something was off.

“This card was printed incorrectly. With only 12 numbers on it, not 16. The security code in the back was only a figure,” Farmer said.

She immediately tried to get her money back by calling the number on the back of the card the next day and explaining the misprint on her card.

She made that call months ago and was just recently reimbursed.

“They wouldn’t answer me by email, they wouldn’t pick up the phone. I have tried a number of times. I held for 30 minutes. There are no human beings anywhere near that line,” Farmer said.

She’s not the only one who experienced this.

Todd Edwin lives in Atlanta, and bought Vanilla gift cards for his employees. He tried using one of the cards after putting cash on it and discovered there wasn’t any money on it.

So he also started making phone calls.

“One of the frustrating things for me is when I call the customer service number after being on hold for a long time. I was told that it wasn’t their concern, that it wasn’t their problem, and that I should read the terms and conditions on the contract,” Edwin said.

The gift cards might say Vanilla, or VISA, or AMEX, but the cards all come from the same place — It’s an Atlanta-based company called Incomm Financial Services. Incomm handles product processing and customer service.

With the increase in cases like these, Attorney Graham Lippsmith is making it his priority to hold the company accountable with a class action lawsuit.

“So far the company that provides the gift cards has been fighting us in court about it. In terms of substance, there has actually not been much of a response at all to counter the allegations about theft of the values on the gift cards,” Lippsmith said.

We reached out to Incomm, and in a written statement they told us they take concerns from cardholders “very seriously.” They said they inform customers of the information needed to conduct an investigation and review complaints on a case-by-case basis. They also said privacy regulations prevent them from commenting on individual cases.

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