Christmas Gift Card with $0.00 Balance

I bought a $100 'Christmas Gift Card For Her' under TheCardNetwork via my local Woolworths for someone for Christmas. I was embarrassingly told back that the card is active with $0.00 balance in it. I had intended for them to use to during the Boxing Day sales but it seems that won't be happening now.

How does this exactly happen? There doesn't seem to be a way on the website to see transactions with the card, only the balance. I have contacted the gift card company via email but what are the chances they will assist in topping it up to its actual balance? Do I need to go to the supplier (Woolworths) and raise a complaint there? I hear thirdparty suppliers of the giftcard are strictly forbidden to give refunds for gift cards. The PIN was not tampered with prior to giving it to them for Christmas.

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Comments

  • The retailer will tell you to go to the supplier who will do the investigation.
    Ruling out not activated I think hackers and it’s on a larger scale than people think with the more insecure cards .

  • +2

    Do you have your receipt ?

  • +4

    When you buy gift cards at Woolworths you get a separate slip saying whether the gift card is activated or not. Do you have this with you ?

  • This happened to my brother. He bought eftpos gift cards for presents. When one recipient went to use it, there was a zero balance. The company could tell where it was used.

  • +3

    Saw something the other day in the news where people are going into stores and putting new bar codes over the backs of these types of cards, so when you load it up, it goes on someone else's card.

    If you have a look at the activation receipt and the card, there may be a difference in the numbers.

    The other thing to look at and I did this once, was that the card needed to be activated online before it could be used. Almost like a double activation to try and make the cards more secure.

  • I bought a gift card as a present the other day and was told that it can take up to 48 hours for it to be activated "in the system". The seller gave me a receipt that shows i paid for it and that the card has been "activated" but she warned (and it is also written on the card) that it could still take 48 hours for it to be able to be used in a store/online.

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