Update 4/30/25: Pepper sent out an email today stating that, “Our app is currently undergoing a planned upgrade as we transition to the new 2.0 version of Pepper. During this time, the app may be temporarily down or have intermittent outages over the next couple of weeks. Rest assured — your points are 100% safe, fully recorded, and will be redeemable in full once the system stabilizes. Nothing is lost, and no action is needed on your end. We’re doing everything we can to keep the downtime to a minimum and expect to have the app back online shortly.”
Original Post 4/29/25:
For a couple of days, points redemptions have been unavailable on the Pepper gift card app. As of today, the app gives a pop up that purchases and points redemptions are not available.
There are those who report recently making purchases and not getting the proper gift card. And so I’d recommend not buying any gift cards now, even if the system allows you to.
Initially I took Pepper at their word (via pop up) that the points redemption was undergoing some sort of service and are ‘temporarily unavailable’. Now I’m leaning toward believing that it’s a deeper issue than that. Perhaps they are trying to get more funding to keep things going. Who knows.
Those who paid for a gift card and did not receive can dispute the purchase with their credit card if it doesn’t end up coming through. Hopefully people will at least be able to redeem their points when we get past the ‘temporary’ issue.
In any case, the best deals on the app haven’t been around for some weeks, and they lately stopped selling some top gift card brands – Amazon, Walmart, and Home Depot.
#developing
Note: the Pepper app is still working, and you can go into your Transaction History to find/screenshot all prior gift cards purchased.
I know many of us have used pepper in the past and many got burned recently when they stopped giving giftcards but still taking our money. I actually just got a response from my email asking for a refund I sent 2 months ago. See the message below:
———- Forwarded message ———
From: Pepper Rewards <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 3:24 PM
Subject: [Pepper Rewards] Re: Charged on may4th and no card
To: AAA <[email protected]>
Hello AAA,
Thank you for reaching out about your 5/4 transaction at Texas Roadhouse, Transaction ID 12538101.
We apologize for the system error that resulted in your Pepper account being charged for a gift card that did not successfully generate.
We have submitted a request to refund the $43.38 in total charged to your account from the incident, and we will follow up once this resolution is confirmed.
We know users are currently unable to complete a gift card purchase or redeem their points, and we understand how frustrating that can be.
The gift card purchasing and point redemptions are temporarily paused for all Pepper users as we rebuild core systems to support our next chapter.
Your credit will remain available and will not expire or diminish in value before you have a chance to use it in full.
During this time, points expiration has been paused. Your balance will remain intact and redeemable once redemptions are back online. All points are safe and will be available again shortly.
We’ll continue to keep you updated and appreciate your patience.
Caitrin
Customer Service
888-416-6161
On 2025 M05 7 18:25:32 UTC, [email protected] wrote:
Hello,
On may4th I purchased a texas roadhouse gift card for 44.38 and never received the gift card. See attached. Please refund!
https://x.com/pepperrewards
hacked or just trolling now
Lol, looks like this is the official Pepper twitter https://x.com/justpepperit
I have received confirmation from a source within Pepper that they received a new round of Venture Capital funding and will come back online in mid-July. They are releasing it together with the full Epstein files list. You will no longer need to be 18 to use the app.
Further confirmation this app is cooked and to stay far away. Email from 6/3/25
“We know users are currently unable to complete a gift card purchase or redeem their points, and we understand how frustrating that can be.
The gift card purchasing and point redemptions are temporarily paused for all Pepper users as we rebuild core systems to support our next chapter.
Your credit will remain available and will not expire or diminish in value before you have a chance to use it in full.
During this time, points expiration has been paused. Your balance will remain intact and redeemable once redemptions are back online. All points are safe and will be available again shortly.
We’ll continue to keep you updated and appreciate your patience.”
#1. How it that “[f]urther confirmation”? Haven’t they been saying the same thing for weeks?
#2. Pepper must not like me as they never send me any emails. ☹
I guess the “further confirmation” is the timing. It’s been almost a month and still the same message.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. The only “further confirmation” would be if their app ceases to exist or if Pepper confirms that our Points are now worthless.
To be clear, I’m not hopeful at all that my Points will ever be worth anything. However, I didn’t “lose” much so I’m not worried about it at all.
Yea this seems like the Drop app all over again. To this day, like what 2 years later?, I think it’s been now. I still have $140 I haven’t been able to grab a gift card for even $5 during their weekly drops or whatever it is now. I stopped trying lol.
I have the same issue with the Drop app. I just want an opportunity to cash it out for gift cards and every time I go in during the supposed opportunity to grab the gift cards it’s either not working, possibly wrong time, or out of stock. Yet, somehow I still earn points so they’re still tracking my data.
This is what they posted to their Facebook 5 days ago:
Update on Point Redemption for Pepper Rewards:
We hear you, and know users are currently unable to redeem their points, and we understand how frustrating that can be.
Point redemptions are temporarily paused for all Pepper users as we rebuild core systems to support our next chapter.
During this time, points expiration has been paused. Your balance will remain intact and redeemable once redemptions are back online. All points are safe and will be available again shortly.
We’ll continue to keep you updated and appreciate your patience.
— The Pepper Team
I’ll believe it when I see it!
‘Rebuild core systems to support our next chapter’ = we’ve run out of funding and once we secured additional funding (if ever), we’ll make points usable again.
How to use these points now?
Thanks Pepper VC’s for the free money. Now on to funding your next start-up so I can milk your sweet VC cash all over again
How much did you milk Pepper for?
Have to imagine this company had major fraud issues. Sam’s Club/Walmart gift cards peaked at 17% off on GCX right before this happened and dropped very quickly down to 0% off/unavailable afterwards
I was actually getting texts & emails from GCX directly promoting their deals on Amazon & Walmart/Sam’s Club. I am genuinely curious if the company themselves bought a fuckload of these to resell or their marketplace or was just flooded by 3rd party’s.
Is there any other app or site that allows $1 gift card purchases?
I tried Pepper 2.0 beta (AI shopper) on their website today. My goal was to test if I could somehow redeem my points after the AI finds me some products (I searched “gaming mouse”). The initial results were just like when I used ChatGPT. But when I asked the AI if I could redeem my points to complete the purchase. It told me I could if I logged into my account in the Pepper App. Clearly, the App does not have this function yet. Is this something the company is trying?