As a gift one of the sales people gave out gift cards from Gift Card Mall last Christmas. Immediately we recognized a problem as over half of them were expired even though they had just been purchased. They were selling cards that were not valid as an expiration date is printed on the front. He went back and had to get all new cards. Apparently this is not just the date by which the cards must be activated but the date by which the cards must be used.
I started using mine right away as it was valid but when checking the balance today the recorded message said it had expired, a year later. I looked at the front and noticed the expiration date was in June so my card was apparently only good for 5 months. They automatically transferred me to a customer service representative who would help me get my balance back for a $15 fee. That was less than my balance which I knew. Also, the fine print says the funds go through the escheatment process of my state so they should be free to access through the state government. This is clearly this group charging a $15 fee to do the paperwork and take advantage of those ignorant of that fact.
Basically I was given a card with a 5 month shelf life, that has a $2 monthly fee starting month 13 not that I see them selling cards that last that lone, if you lose your card the replacement fee is $5.95 and they are very quick to put you through to a customer service person who will help extract a fee from you. I didn't even know that monthly maintenance fees still existed. This place is a huge rip off and I expect they make more off of "other fees" than from the original purchase cost of the card and that reeks of a rip off organization. They work with vendors like Amazon, Starbucks and Visa and I hope we can make them aware of these scam artists and get them to pull away because they are just ripping off their customers and keeping them from spending their money where they want to spend it. If you want a gift card go to the actual vendor. These guys will sell you an expiring or soon to expire card and then charge you for your money. Total rip offs and the worst gift you'll give someone.
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