Has Anyone Received/Given an Unvalidated Gift Card?

Hi community, general question for you all.

For Christmas I gave my mother a David Jones gift card which I had bought at a Woolworths store (Yes, she thinks she is a DJs toff). She went to use it in January and was told it had not been validated. i.e. Had not been paid for.

Being a bit embarrassed about this, she called to let me know. I did a quick check and confirmed that my bank account had been debited on the day of purchase and was able to even find the receipt a couple of minutes later. I sent photos of these to her while she was still in the store which she provided to management. After a couple of weeks investigation, they were able to provide her with another gift card that had been validated.

Glad they were able to fix this but it then raises questions about another time where I had been given a Bunnings gift card for my own birthday and had the same scenario happen to myself. i.e. They claimed that it had not been validated. Now the only reason I didn't follow that one up as a family member had given it to me and I just assumed they they somehow had not paid for it by mistake, thus leaving them $100 better off rather than myself. Which I was OK with.

But in hindsight, perhaps the Bunnings one had been paid for and the same issue occurred with that gift card.

And looking a bit further back a friend had asked some odd questions months after I gave them a gift card. I didn't think too much about it at the time but I am now thinking that those questions seem to point to the gift card also not being validated (my wife had purchased that one, so different credit card).

So my question to the great community, is this a common thing? I am thinking that in most cases, people don't speak up so that they don't cause an issue for the giver. Interested to hear from others.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Poll Options

  • 7
    Yes, happened to a gift card I received.
  • 3
    Yes, happened to a gift card I gave someone.
  • 0
    Never happened to me but to someone I know.
  • 42
    No.

Comments

  • +11

    No poll option for "I deliberately give invalidated to save buying a present"?
    You don't know this crowd.

    • As long as the money is in the gift giver or recipients hands, and not a large corporations 🤷🏼‍♀️

  • I had it happen with a prepaid SIM from Lebara. Similar mechanism. Had to send them a copy of the supermarket receipt and activation receipt, which fortunately I'd kept.

  • Happened to me but with a SIM pack purchased from my local Coles. Used self checkout for the transaction and there was a strange error - the attendant at the time just brushed it off and I didn't think anything more of it.

    Tried to activate the SIM several weeks later and it wouldn't activate. Couldn't find the receipt so contacted Coles service desk and they searched through all my transactions at that Coles recently to find the sale. Then, it was replaced with an activated SIM. Painful experience but Coles was helpful

  • +5

    Best to include the receipt with the gift card incase of this issue.
    They already know how much you spent anyway.

    • +1

      Was just coming to say the same thing. We always give a copy of the receipt/validation to the recipient (or parent) just to save any hassle later.

  • +2

    General question

    👍

    • A situation like this should really have been posted by The Specific

    • At ease soldier

  • Just check Scumtree and the heist of broken in convenience store cards can be purchased against prepayment!

  • I was once part of a promo that mailed many customers unvalidated Bunnings gift cards. Because of a Bunnings stuff up. That was fun.

  • Besides the generally tiny discount some places offer, I still don't really get the whole thing around giving gift cards.

  • +1

    Yes I bought a prepaid Mastercard that wasn’t validated. Took some time but Coles sorted it out.

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