eBay

iliketobuynow · ‎03-18-2022

Does anyone know what happens to gift cards and refunds, if it results in more than 8 gift cards in the account?

About a month ago, I bought an i7 computer with a 1 TB NVME drive but got an i5 with a 512 GB standard SSD drive. I sent it back (the seller's excuse was that they sent the person who ordered the i5 the i7, and they sent me the i5) and got a refund on the gift card. I also bought a second computer that same day from a seller who claimed they needed me to wait 2 weeks before shipping it because they didn't have enough money to pay for shipping, but 2 weeks later they won't reply to my messages or ship the item, so I opened a claim on eBay.

A few days ago, I bought another two computers. One of the sellers shipped the item, and the other cancelled my order after I paid, claiming that it was out of stock or damaged, so I now already have a few gift cards in my account due to the seller cancelling my order after I paid. After eBay resolves my claim and refunds me for the computer that I bought a month ago from the seller who claimed he didn't have enough money for shipping and never shipped it, I'll end up with more than 8 gift cards in my account. I read somewhere there's a maximum of 8 gift cards when paying. But has anyone ever held more than 8 gift cards in an account? What I don't want to happen is to have a balance get "lost" if their system only supports 8 gift cards at a time.

And, are computer sellers getting worse on eBay? 2 (with 100% positive feedback) didn't even ship, 1 (with 100% positive feedback) shipped a lower end model, and as of now I'm counting on the seller with less than 100% feedback to ship as advertised...

femmefan1946 · ‎03-18-2022

In the first place, never use gift cards to pay for something online.

Once the codes are sent, it is impossible to get a refund unless the seller is cooperative.

Which is why many scammers and crooks ask to be paid with cards.

Case 1.) The seller cooperated and you did get a refund.

Case 2.) eBay cannot force him to refund you because you paid with gift cards and not through Paypal.

Case 3.)There is no problem here. Paid and shipped.

Case 4.) The transaction was refunded.

I'd suggest cashing out the gift cards as soon as possible.

Use a credit card to back a Paypal account. This gives you three layers of protection.

EBay for 30 days from delivery or last estimated delivery date.

Paypal for 180 days from payment.

Chargeback to the credit card. Card policies differ.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-19-2022

Case 2.) eBay cannot force him to refund you because you paid with gift cards and not through Paypal.

Buyers can pay with eBay gift cards when they checkout and the transaction is covered by the mbg just like any other purchase paid for on eBay.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-19-2022

I'm not that familiar with using gift cards here so am just going by the help pages. According to number 10 on the following link, you can use up to 8 cards for one transaction as you mentioned. But It doesn't say if there a max amount of cards that can be stored.

https://pages.ebay.ca/gift-cards/index.html#m17-1-tb1

marnotom! · ‎03-19-2022

@iliketobuynow wrote:

And, are computer sellers getting worse on eBay? 2 (with 100% positive feedback) didn't even ship, 1 (with 100% positive feedback) shipped a lower end model, and as of now I'm counting on the seller with less than 100% feedback to ship as advertised...

You may have noticed that feedback percentages are calculated differently than they were a while ago. The percentage is now based on the past twelve months of transactions, rather than a user's entire transaction history. While the one year timeframe is probably better for keeping the percentage fresh or more reflective of how a seller is doing now, it's not particularly useful if that percentage is based on a small handful of transactions.

Since eBay has now increased the number of characters one can use in a feedback comment to make them more like reviews, I think you'd be best actually looking at the feedback left for the seller and the feedback the seller has left for others to get a better overall sense of seller performance.