Funds Stolen from My Disney Gift Card Account

[gottalovepluto]

Surely the target 5% discount isn't worth gift card hassles? Or am I missing other reasons for collecting thousands of dollars of gift cards?

Thousands upon thousands of people have no hassles. Like everything else in life it’s great until you’re the .001%. With Hertz you land in jail when Hertz screws up, so at least Disney hasn’t had anyone arrested yet!

Personally I still load gc, transfer gc and store them on the website. To each their own.

 

[SL6827]

Ok, so it would not be safe if I were to purchase a $100 gift card from Target every so often and loaded them onto the site to transfer them to my lead card that would be deleted after every transfer?

That is what I have done in the past. I had a seperate gift card set for dining, spending for each person, and resort bill pay off. It worked well in the past. But I do know for a fact that my Disney account was hacked, but I did go in and change my password.

If this is no longer safe to do, I will no longer do it at all. I am just wondering if once you load your lead card onto the site to receive transfers, that the hackers can get that info even though you delete it after ever load?

 

[Eastern]

Thousands upon thousands of people have no hassles. Like everything else in life it’s great until you’re the .001%. With Hertz you land in jail when Hertz screws up, so at least Disney hasn’t had anyone arrested yet!

Personally I still load gc, transfer gc and store them on the website. To each their own.

I'm guessing it's more than .001% ; search cybercrime statistics.

At the very least, posts like these serve as a wake up call to monitor accounts, review passwords, and take as many precautionary steps as possible. I have been hacked multiple times in the past year alone and it's not foolproof just because someone takes precautions. Outside firms that have your information (wegmans, doctors, local businesses, etc) get hacked and expose your information and then all of your good practices go out the window.

My choice is to only buy a GC (from any vendor) when I plan to use it in the very near future. And I always keep receipts until the GC is used. I would not use a GC consolidation service as that is a middleman coming between you and the original card issuer. It's extra complication. It's fine until something goes wrong and then you have to jump through hoops to possibly get your money back. I read the T&C for the DCG website and they basically say, 'the agreement is between you and your card issuer'.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

This is horrible--but glad you were able to get it resolved.

I am wondering, based on your experience, whether you think it's safe to use the Disney gift card website to combine gift cards and then delete all of the cards, or whether it's best to just avoid the Disney gift card website altogether.

I always combine them into MASTER cards that I put stickers on and mark up to keep track of them and only combine them when I have the max of 1000 ready to go.
Once I do that, I delete everything on there so there is never anything sitting there at all. I keep track of my spending with receipts and keep each MASTER giftcard in a plastic envelope with the receipts used under that one, so that I can see what was spent on each card.

 

[RandomHarmony]

I always combine them into MASTER cards that I put stickers on and mark up to keep track of them and only combine them when I have the max of 1000 ready to go.
Once I do that, I delete everything on there so there is never anything sitting there at all. I keep track of my spending with receipts and keep each MASTER giftcard in a plastic envelope with the receipts used under that one, so that I can see what was spent on each card.

 

[SL6827]

I plan to just make me an entirely new account with an odd email and odd psssword with Disney just to combine my cards and then delete everything.

I may do this numerous times as well. Once I fill up a dining payment card, I will move onto a resort payment card and so on.

 

[iwannabdduck]

Years ago buying and using Disney gift cards was like eating candy ... I enjoyed it a lot. Now they've become more of a hassle to buy, use and safeguard. On our most recent trip I did not combine multiple cards them ahead of time into a single higher-denomination card on Disney's GC site. I simply handed the cast member my card(s) and let them do all the work. If more than one card was needed to pay a bill (it always was) they combined the balances to cover the total bill, and then return all the cards including the zero-balance cards. The receipt shows the remaining balance of the good card. In previous years when I combined cards on DGC site, I eventually had to use more than one card at a time anyway as card balances were used up. Now I simply do that all the time. I find it to be less work, less worry and a lot like handing a cashier multiple dollar bills to pay a bill and waiting for your change.

 

[laceltris3]

I miss the Disney Vacation Accounts. I would buy gift cards, and them transfer them immediately to the account, and would just give my TA the account number for payment. It had the protections of an actual bank account, even if Disney had gotten rid of the bonus for using the account to pay for vacations.

As it is now, I just buy the GCs at Kroger when they are doing 4X fuel points, as I have a credit card that gives unlimited 5% off groceries, but only buy $500 at a time on one card, like once a month so I can get $1 off of every tank of gas for the month, and then just give them to guest services when I board.

 

[RandomHarmony]

I did finally receive my replacement DGC. I received the full amount that was taken from my DGC account. It took almost two months and a lot of emails, phone calls trying to get someone to help me to no avail and effort on my part. I had all of my receipts for the DGC's, the problem is that you can only make a report of this type via email. I received no response to my emails reporting this for over two weeks and that response wasn't until I emailed them from a different email address that was different from the one attached to my DGC account. Even after getting an email on 09/30 stating they had verified what I told them regarding the DGC and they would replace the DGC, I didn't receive the replacement DGC until 10/17 via email. That was after emailing them several times more with no response again and then having to get someone by phone at Disneyland customer service message them for me, not the Disney Gift Card customer service phone number, they would not help at all. I was able to verify that I am not able to receive or send emails to the Disney Gift Card email address that was given to me from the email address that is attached to my DGC account. This is what caused the delay and perhaps would cause some to just give up. I checked with my Internet provider who could find no reason why I wasn't able to receive emails from the DGC email address using that account. I was able to receive and send emails to the DGC email address using a different email user account using the same provider, which I find very strange. I was given no explanation as to where the funds went. I am just glad I was able to get the funds returned. I will say I won't be using the Disney Gift Card site to combine gift cards again or to even check my balance. I probably won't be purchasing any DGC's for awhile or ever again.

 

[Pooh2]

I've only used the site to check balances, never set up an account.
Would checking the balance on the phone be a safer way to go?

 

[midwestdee]

I've only used the site to check balances, never set up an account.
Would checking the balance on the phone be a safer way to go?

The important thing is after you transfer balances, do NOT leave that card on the site. Remove it - that does not delete your balance. The website says do not use it to “store” your cards like a bank. I consolidated balances in June before our trip so I only had to give TA a couple of cards to pay off our trip.

 

[LaDonna]

The important thing is after you transfer balances, do NOT leave that card on the site. Remove it - that does not delete your balance. The website says do not use it to “store” your cards like a bank. I consolidated balances in June before our trip so I only had to give TA a couple of cards to pay off our trip.

Ok let me make sure I understand this correctly because I’ve been using the website a lot
I normally get a gift card put it on the website and then immediately transfer it to my main primary card that I keep here at my house and I do this with any gift card a by throughout the year so I only use that one primary card when I go to buy something….. however I keep that primary card on the website are you saying I need to delete that? And by deleting it it doesn’t wipe out the money on the card which I guess that does make sense why would it….so Essentially u have a no cards saved on there really at any time?

 

[midwestdee]

Ok let me make sure I understand this correctly because I’ve been using the website a lot
I normally get a gift card put it on the website and then immediately transfer it to my main primary card that I keep here at my house and I do this with any gift card a by throughout the year so I only use that one primary card when I go to buy something….. however I keep that primary card on the website are you saying I need to delete that? And by deleting it it doesn’t wipe out the money on the card which I guess that does make sense why would it….so Essentially u have a no cards saved on there really at any time?

If you read the wording on the website it will clarify things. After I transfer balances I delete all cards from the website- if you chose to leave one that had NO $ on it, no big deal - just don’t leave one with $ loaded on it. Deleting it from the website does not delete whatever balance you have on it.

 

[midwestdee]

Not sure if this info will paste

https://www.disneygiftcard.com/info

 

[LaDonna]

If you read the wording on the website it will clarify things. After I transfer balances I delete all cards from the website- if you chose to leave one that had NO $ on it, no big deal - just don’t leave one with $ loaded on it. Deleting it from the website does not delete whatever balance you have on it.

It all makes sense really I’m just having kind of a duh moment, I don’t know why all this time I was just thinking I had to leave that main primary used gift card on there…..but hmmm I think maybe I had always done it as just a back up in case I actually lost the physical gift card….. but there’s other ways around that I can put all the information about the gift card in my safe or something

 

[midwestdee]

It all makes sense really I’m just having kind of a duh moment, I don’t know why all this time I was just thinking I had to leave that main primary used gift card on there…..but hmmm I think maybe I had always done it as just a back up in case I actually lost the physical gift card….. but there’s other ways around that I can put all the information about the gift card in my safe or something

Just keep all the numbers to your gift card listed in a safe place. Under FAQS, they specifically say do not use the website as a mobile wallet - they can’t give a more clear warning than that.

 

[afan]

It all makes sense really I’m just having kind of a duh moment, I don’t know why all this time I was just thinking I had to leave that main primary used gift card on there…..but hmmm I think maybe I had always done it as just a back up in case I actually lost the physical gift card….. but there’s other ways around that I can put all the information about the gift card in my safe or something

I have two spreadsheets. One has the card number, amount and name, which is where the cards from shop dis come in handy. Inside out, 50th, grogu etc. The 2nd has the pin codes.

Do they need to be separate, no but I figure it's safer. I can also access them on my phone with the excel app so should something happen I can move it to one of the 2 spare cards I bring and leave in the room.

I also keep track of what card I use to pay my resort balance before the trip so I don't load more in case I need to cancel.

 

[LaDonna]

Just keep all the numbers to your gift card listed in a safe place. Under FAQS, they specifically say do not use the website as a mobile wallet - they can’t give a more clear warning than that.

See I’m not always the brightest I guess though when I saw “mobile wallet” I just think about actually using that site to pull up your gift card numbers to pay for something, which wasn’t what I was doing at all

 

[808blessing]

You can buy a disney e card to add to your mobile wallet. Then transfer hard card money to the e card via website. The only thing is the balance never updates.