Take Care with eBay Gift Cards

Lmiztadave on 11/05/2018 - 10:23
Last edited 11/05/2018 - 23:44 by 2 other users

Be careful when using multiple eBay gift cards for a single purchase. It seems somewhat random which cards are used to complete the transaction. It's not necessarily the last card which will have any remaining balance.

I recently purchased an item using a total of 4 gift cards. I expected the remaining balance to appear on the last card. Slight panic when a balance check of the card showed $0! A quick call to eBay support found that it was one of the other cards I'd used that had the remaining balance. Luckily I hadn't thrown it out!

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  scrimshaw on 11/05/2018 - 10:31

  +3

  Apparently: according to this old forum post on Paypal, refunds go back onto your gift card.

  If your gift cards are physical in nature, it's probably also a good idea to keep it's details.

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    D C on 11/05/2018 - 19:23

    A refund is not giving you money back, it is cancelling a transaction.

    Where does the money go if you cancel a transaction? Back to the account it came from.

    From a retailers point of view cancelling a transaction is no big deal, transferring money from their account to your account is.

    OzBargain does indeed have a problem with this concept.

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  Detective Pikachu on 11/05/2018 - 11:23

  +2

  Tip: Login to eBay US (ebay.com) and temporarily checkout something and under the coupon code section, it'll list any existing balances on any prior used gift cards including any that have been refunded. As of writing, eBay Australia unfortunately isn't as feature rich in handling gift cards as eBay US.

  How eBay refunds the balance is in a distributed manner, say you bought something for $500 with 5 x $100 eBay Gift Cards and the seller issues a partial refund of $50, $10 will be returned to each of the gift cards, rather than $50 to one card. I've had instances where gift cards had like $0.40 or $0.02 balances because of this distributed manner of refunding. The distributed method also applies in addition to any other payment method (Credit Card/PayPal/eBay Coupon) you use to supplement any purchases.

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  tumsum on 11/05/2018 - 14:48

  +1

  Also note that remaining balances on the eBay gift cards must be spent in the same account as it is linked.

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    Amaurys on 12/05/2018 - 16:19

    Not true?

    What about giving someone a Gift Card as a present?

    Any Gift Card, regardless of where it has been purchased, works on any eBay account. All you need is a PayPal.

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    Detective Pikachu on 14/05/2018 - 19:51

    This is correct. If you use the eBay Gift Card once on an account, it'll be bound to be used only by that specific eBay account. Only an unused card can be used on an alternative account.

    Source:

    3 - As a security feature, upon first use the Gift Card (including funds on the Gift Card) links to the eBay account associated with the Gift Card's first use and becomes non-transferable.

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  WhatsTheBigDeal on 14/05/2018 - 19:43

  This happened to me too yesterday, fortunately they were all e-gift cards so upon trying another I found my balance there :-)

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  bwatt72 on 09/08/2018 - 10:38

  Can you use ebay gift cards purchased here (aus) and use on ebay.com or only for aus ebay?

  • 

    cwongtech on 09/08/2018 - 16:17

    Ebay AU only.
    Ebay US doesn't accept them.

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      thearbiter117 on 27/10/2018 - 14:36

      I know this post is kinda old but i cant find the answer from googling and your post is the closest i got.
      What about the other way around? Can i use a US ebay gift card on an australian account?