eBay Gift Cards Usage now Limited to $1,000 per Month?

I’ve been hearing an uptick in reports of eBay giving error messages when attempting to pay with an eBay gift card. The message states that you’ve used too many gift cards recently, try back in a few days.

A couple of readers reached out that they’ve heard from various eBay account reps that there’s a new $1,000 cap on eBay gift card usage per calendar month, down from the previous limit of $5,000 per month. The odd thing is that the $5k limit is still showing in the eBay T&C, and historically they’ve always updated that page when a change was made.

It might be a temporary thing or it may depend on other risk factors as to how many gift cards they’ll allow. Let us know your experiences in the comments.

Update: Limit is now officially $1,500 per month. 

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Jenny
Jenny (@guest_649397)
September 30, 2018 04:03

Is this still last?

Fitzgerald Lewis
Fitzgerald Lewis (@guest_585533)
April 23, 2018 21:19

You can file a complaint against EBay for such unlaful practices at:

https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

Mouse
Mouse (@guest_576626)
April 2, 2018 16:43

often buy with gift cards but now these purchases have become a disaster. this restriction is cruel. but still today I was able to redeem one more 1000 gift card per day after couple of days of wasiting. can’t get what’s going on here? and when will this situation change?

Jonathan S
Jonathan S (@guest_577208)
April 3, 2018 18:52

The restriction is based on calendar month, so since it is near the beginning of the month you were able to get your $1,500 for April. You’ll have to wait until May to do your next $1,500.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a class-action suit related to this issue as eBay never gave anyone a head’s up, and their terms and conditions continued to say that you could use $2,000/day and $5,000/month. This is extremely misleading and could be a major burden for people who have the reasonable expectation of the stated terms and conditions.

They waited 4 weeks to finally update their terms and conditions. The change went into effect on March 6, and they finally updated their terms and conditions on April 2 with the following the language:
“No more than a total of $1000 in Gift Cards may be redeemed per day, and no more than a total of $1500 in Gift Cards may be redeemed per calendar month. Further, you may only redeem a maximum of eight Gift Cards in any single transaction (and fewer if you are redeeming Gift Cards in combination with other redemption codes, such as coupons or vouchers).”

Kevin
Kevin (@guest_579020)
April 8, 2018 02:27

Sign up me. I’m tired of these bastards switching policies without notice. They tried to pull a fast one last time as well and it didn’t sit lightly.

Jimmy
Jimmy (@guest_573407)
March 23, 2018 17:40

Got hit by the limit as well. Talked to eBay support and they’ve said that as of March 7th, this is a new change that has been rolled out to all users. They’re monitoring the situation but the new limit in place is $1,000/month (daily limit also falls under this).

Alex
Alex (@guest_572048)
March 19, 2018 21:12

How can this be legal? What if you want to buy something that is more expensive then their limit?

Daniel
Daniel (@guest_571753)
March 19, 2018 09:50

I was one of the aforementioned readers who reported the issue. It’s been over a week and I still have not received an official response as to why I am being limited to $1000, even as they acknowledge that the terms state otherwise. I was supposed to get a response from their small gift card team on Friday, but the team could not be reached, and the agent was vague and pointed to some ambiguous “context” that the team wanted to explain that justified this limit.

I’m not a lawyer, but I can’t see how this isn’t plain fraud. I would be curious about how the laws treat 1) gift card purchases made prior to a change in terms 2) terms that are so ridiculous that they wouldn’t be held up in court (just theoretical here) and, in our case, 3) secret terms that conflict with concurrently-published terms.

Chuck
Chuck (@guest_571850)
March 19, 2018 13:13

I have been using the maximum $5k/mo for over a year on two different accounts, so live with a spreadsheet to track them all. Official word from eBay is that there is a temporary $1000/mo limit in place as they ‘evaluate’ the program. My last purchases with gift cards were March 7, and I have $3k this month already, but unable to make any further purchase with the cards since then. I was told the official eBay terms of use will not be changed until they decide what to do. The date of that decision is unknown to the representatives at this time. I chased this answer for the last two weeks before finally getting an answer. As stated previously, I do not understand how they can do this without either a notification or changing the terms of service.

Daniel
Daniel (@guest_571948)
March 19, 2018 16:55

Interesting. Maybe they want to analyze whether “heavy” users will make up the spending out-of-pocket, so they can profit further (assuming there is a cost for them for each gift card sold). If so, presumably they can just distribute gift cards less or for fewer discounts. Purely speculation on my part. Regardless, the secrecy of the “policy” is ridiculous.

H XU
H XU (@guest_572044)
March 19, 2018 21:03

unless there is a big discount on gift card, otherwise even there is a cost for gift card, it is very profit on gift card sale as it can bring ebay a huge and positive cash flow, same as interest-free loan……

Rahim
Rahim (@guest_571645)
March 18, 2018 21:24

Yep, can confirm, just got hit by this. Funny tbh, last time’s limit was $5k on my account and i only did $1.5k. Random rules. I swear.

jz
jz (@guest_571609)
March 18, 2018 18:54

i can confirm this, I hit the limit and was wondering

Jason Smith
Jason Smith (@guest_571580)
March 18, 2018 17:35

I haven’t spent more than $1000 in gift cards this month as I am waiting to get targeted for an ebay bucks bonus. That being said, I have noticed that in the last week there is no way anymore to check the balance on a gift card. If they do start limiting it to $1000 monthly, I think it is time to start complaining again to the State of California like we did the last time when they changed the gift card terms overnight.

Chuck
Chuck (@guest_572258)
March 20, 2018 14:00

You can still check your gift card balance through the eBay app. Go into Settings -> eBay Gift Card Balance. It took me two weeks to discover this. The website link still does not work.

John Nguyen
John Nguyen (@guest_572499)
March 21, 2018 07:19

Thank you so much. Drive me crazy I can’t able to check my gc balance. I called ebay customer service. They are useless, doesn’t know either.

Vic
Vic (@guest_571534)
March 18, 2018 15:24

just ranting but it’s a really dumb policy..
This would affect lots of consumers, not just churners and flippers. Even average folks who do regular shopping on eBay could be affected too, a laptop is more than $1,000…

Drivesabrowntruck
Drivesabrowntruck (@guest_571542)
March 18, 2018 15:43

I know I’d be pissed if I went to Kroger and picked up $1000+ in ebay gift cards for a laptop or something and was limited to $1000 while the T&C say 5k

Peter
Peter (@guest_571565)
March 18, 2018 17:03

dunno I don’t think any regular people think to buy gift cards before buying something on ebay. Probably some do, but I figure most at least know the game