Disney Gift Card Deals

[DIS_MERI]

Have to laugh that ebay is (possibly) going to allow gc-gc purchases again (if briefly) since I have spent down most of mine (I didn't really need an Apple Watch, but I needed one more than I needed 200 in ebay cards I couldn't buy gc with). I do still have ~750 in ebay cards, so it will be nice to turn those into something spendable. If they still have the 2k/60 days limit I won't be getting extras to run through, but if they do I might build up my kroger fuel points since there's a 4x starting tomorrow. Guess we will find out before too long.

 

[MommaBerd]

So, the day the PPDG hack post came out, I checked my balances - and the money was there - Whew!

Haven't been able to get to BB until today, and guess what? Yep! The cards were drained. If only I could have gotten there sooner...

So, I get the joy of dealing with PayPal now...

 

[AmyAnne]

I am so sorry for all of those who have been affected by the PPDG hack. It seems that primarily or maybe only Best Buy digital gift cards have been hacked - or have I missed others?

To be on the safe side, I am about to make a hotels.com reservation that I don't need and fully intend to cancel, just so my gift cards will not be hack-able.

 

[Lain]

Have to laugh that ebay is (possibly) going to allow gc-gc purchases again (if briefly) since I have spent down most of mine (I didn't really need an Apple Watch, but I needed one more than I needed 200 in ebay cards I couldn't buy gc with). I do still have ~750 in ebay cards, so it will be nice to turn those into something spendable. If they still have the 2k/30 days limit I won't be getting extras to run through, but if they do I might build up my kroger fuel points since there's a 4x starting tomorrow. Guess we will find out before too long.

Just to be sure, it's 2k/60 days so hopefully that opens up the cap for you.

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

I am so sorry for all of those who have been affected by the PPDG hack. It seems that primarily or maybe only Best Buy digital gift cards have been hacked - or have I missed others?

To be on the safe side, I am about to make a hotels.com reservation that I don't need and fully intend to cancel, just so my gift cards will not be hack-able.

You can also combine gc's on hotel.com website so if you buy a clean one you could combine them all onto that

 

[GPC0321]

This might be a stupid question...but it won't be my first or last, LOL...does Sam's charge sales tax on gift cards?

 

[sumlthomp]

This might be a stupid question...but it won't be my first or last, LOL...does Sam's charge sales tax on gift cards?

No

 

[GPC0321]

No

Okay, I didn't think so, but the deals are so good I thought it must be too good to be true! LOL! Wow! If I buy the Disney cards with my Chase Freedom card, I get a honey of a deal! Woot!

 

[Lain]

This might be a stupid question...but it won't be my first or last, LOL...does Sam's charge sales tax on gift cards?

No retailer should be charging sales tax on gift cards. That would subject you to double taxation.

 

[GPC0321]

No retailer should be charging sales tax on gift cards. That would subject you to double taxation.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I guess it's just something I've never thought about. I don't buy many gift cards, but now that I think about it, of course there is no sales tax. Duh.
I just joined Sam's today (re-joined, I guess. It's been may years since I had a membership), and I was very excited about the Disney gift card prices! Between the discount price of the cards and the 5% back from using my Chase Freedom, I can get $900 worth of gift cards for essentially $815 (after my 5% back from Freedom). Our 2-day park-hoppers are $821.13 (tax included), so I'll get those plus have $78.87 left over on the gift cards! That's pretty sweet!

 

[DIS_MERI]

Just to be sure, it's 2k/60 days so hopefully that opens up the cap for you.

Thanks, it doesn't help me (I was thinking 60 and typing 30), but I edited my post to reflect the proper limit.

 

[bbsearchlight]

If your gift cards were drained, call paypal digital gifts at 1-877-569-1148. While I was able to get my money back from them, others have reported that they have not.

That being said, ebay will allow gift card to gift card purchase for the next 30 days but is it worth it buying a gift card which we now know can be hacked? For those who haven't been keeping up, if you have gift cards purchased from paypal digital gifts in the last 2 months, use them immediately as your numbers have been hacked and crooks have access to them. Even if your balance is still there now, it can disappear at any moment. (see MommaBerd 10 posts up). If you have Best Buy gift cards, you can go into Best Buy and ask them to put the money onto new gift cards if you don't want to use it now.

For those of you that think this won't happen to you, here are some data points I have put together from around the internet:

1) 11 people reporting on doctorofcredit that their gift card balances have been drained

http://www.doctorofcredit.com/paypal-digital-gifts-hacked-last-month/

2) 3 users on slickdeals report that their gift cards were drained

http://slickdeals.net/f/9082479-pay...lances-asap?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1

http://slickdeals.net/f/9080311-pay...our-balance?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1

3) 7 users on fatwallet report that their gift card balances have been drained

https://www.fatwallet.com/forums/deal-discussion/1525220

4) 5 users right here in this forum have reported that card balances have been drained

5) Shawn Coomer writes on milestomemory that he was contacted by one of the higher ups at a 3rd party gift card seller that “A slew of bad iTunes cards in the past few days that we’re all purchased from PPDG. We are putting together data points to confirm it, but we now think their outage was related to a hack.”

http://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/paypal-digital-gifts-hacked/#comment-413858

 

[bbsearchlight]

So to continue what I was just saying, all this has happened in the last week. It is pretty obvious that paypal digital gift cards was hacked and yet they ARE STILL DENYING THAT IT HAPPENED.

So why are we only seeing the small amount of complaints about it? Because unlike credit cards, which people check their accounts online and get a bill at the end of every month, who checks their gift card balance? If not for Susieq's post here last Monday, I never would have checked my balance probably until Christmas when I tried to use the cards. There are probably thousands of people who are going to find out the hard way over the next few weeks / months that their gift card balances have been stolen.

So the point of this is, you have a company (Paypal) who is lying through their teeth about being hacked and not willing to refund the money for most people. So if you continue to buy gift cards from them, you buy it at your own risk.

 

[wendow]

Hey guys, just got home from WDW tonight...been gone for 10 days...and return to news of a PPDG hack. Ugh, what in the world!?? I will go back and read. I have GC's from PPDG that I have not used from BB, Southwest and Lowes. Are they all affected? Sounds like quite the mess.

 

[wendow]

I found an article that lists which stores allow you to buy gift cards with gifts cards. I think the chart may need some updating, but it at least can give you some ideas about which cards to buy if you have to. They also list which cards will NOT let you buy gc's with theirs, and which discount websites sell which gc's.
http://www.hustlermoneyblog.com/best-gift-cards/
They listed Kroger, and Cardcash had some Krogers cards at 2% off. I bought $100 worth, and will try them out next time they offer 4-5X points for gift cards.

My Kroger chain, King Soopers, will not allow any GC's to be purchased with a GC. I tried it just a few weeks ago and was denied.

 

[bbsearchlight]

Hey guys, just got home from WDW tonight...been gone for 10 days...and return to news of a PPDG hack. Ugh, what in the world!?? I will go back and read. I have GC's from PPDG that I have not used from BB, Southwest and Lowes. Are they all effected? Sounds like quite the mess.

This is what is maddening, since Paypal won't admit they were hacked, we really don't know. Most of the reported gift cards being drained so far are iTunes and Best Buy. This would make sense as they are probably the highest demand of the gift cards. While I would think thieves wouldn't steal SouthWest gift cards since if they book a flight with it, it could easily be traced back to them, it is entirely possible that the thieves are selling these hacked gift cards to 3rd party sites like raise, cardcash, etc. In that case, all gift cards from PPDG are vulnerable.

If Paypal would only admit to the hack and reissue new gift cards. it would solve the problem. Unfortunately, greed seems to winning out over morals at Paypal.

 

[bbsearchlight]

I just found another forum with 6 more people reporting their gift cards have been drained

https://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic...urity-issues-hacked-check-your-balances-asap/

 

[lorijohnhill]

Morals and PayPal, that's funny.

 

[MommaBerd]

Thanks for the info @bbsearchlight !

 

[DIS_MERI]

Added my Kroger digital coupon for 4x this morning, and it is good until October 1 (register receipt had said Sept 24). That changes my strategy considerably, since I can now hold out until Oct 1 and get fuel points for October and November. I buy the $100 visa gift card (fixed value earn fuel points where variable load do not) and then use those $100 at a time as a debit card to buy a Disney (or whatever) gift card, which makes it more like a 22% plus SW miles (I am over my 6K limit on my 6% amex). The math goes something like this: spend 529.75 on 5 $100 visa debit cards, earn 2000 fuel points. Use 5 $100 gift cards to buy $500 in disney cards, earn 2000 fuel points. Save 140 on fuel but spent 30 on activation fees, so 110 savings/500 value is 22% saved, plus SW miles (which were worth about 1.6% but I don't know if they still are with the new usage plan).