Gift Cards on Ebay

[newt1912]

I thought that I might be able to get a bargain on GCs for different stores that I shop at by purchasing another's unwanted GC on Ebay. What shocked me is that most/all of the bidding for popular GCs goes close to or even exceeds the actual value of the GC being auctioned.

What am I not getting? Is there a reason one would pay $25.00 or $25.25 for a $25.00 GC?

 

[luvmy3]

The only time I ever understood it was when Microsoft had Bing.com and you would get cashback on your ebay purchase. Sometimes it went up to 20 or 30% back. But Bing is no more so I have no idea why people do it

 

[3boymthr]

The only time I ever understood it was when Microsoft had Bing.com and you would get cashback on your ebay purchase. Sometimes it went up to 20 or 30% back. But Bing is no more so I have no idea why people do it

There are other similar programs that still give cashback on ebay. e-bates is one I can name off the top of my head but there are definitely others.

Another not so nice reason that I can think of... People with stolen Paypal and credit card accounts like to buy gift cards with the stolen information. They don't care what they spend on the cards cause they're not paying for them and even if the stolen data gets shut off quickly they can still spend the money at their leisure - not nice but true. It's the reason many many stores in my area now only accept cash for gift card purchases.

 

[hoffmann2828]

I will admit that I am one of those people - to a certain extent.

I purchase lots of toner on ebay (cheaper than office depot) for work. With the 2% you get in eBay bucks, I find that sometimes I will have around $20 or so eBay bucks at redemption time. So for me to bid $27 on a $25 gift card really only costs me $7 out of pocket.

I only go "close" to the amount though - would never pay anywhere near say $35 on a $25 card.

Jenny