Giftcardzen Scales Back on their Gift Card Buying Program

Giftcardzen used to be one of the biggest gift card buyers with regards to the number of brands they’d buy. Over the past little while I’ve noticed that they stopped buying most gift cards brands. They still from around 25 brands that they are still accepting, like Best Buy, Walmart, Nike, Cabela’s, and a few others.

Screen Shot 2017-02-06 at 1.24.03 PM

Most likely, they are shifting to buying more and more from their bulk sellers and are winding down, to an extent, the ordinary seller marketplace. Giftcardzen has difficult thresholds for bulk seller, requiring a minimum of $20,000 to become one.

Interestingly, the brands they are taking are largely brands which have deals on them, so they might be moving to a deals-based system where they stock up on given brands when there are sales, and then use their inventory to tide them over for a while.

Another change is that Giftcardzen began paying via Paypal instead of mailed check. They do have a ~10 day wait from processing until initiating the Paypal transaction. And from what I’ve been hearing, they’ve also removed their $600 weekly sales limit.

We’ll update The Complete Guide to Selling your Unwanted Gift Cards for Cash with these changes.

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15 Comments
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HT
HT (@guest_349358)
February 6, 2017 17:53

my weekly limit was set at $2,000

Aks
Aks (@guest_349674)
February 7, 2017 11:28
  HT

How would you find daily/weekly/monthly limit?

noturbizniss
noturbizniss (@guest_350029)
February 7, 2017 23:54

when you go over you will get a hard block preventing you from entering the card. IME the limit is on resale value. So if they offer 50% for a card you can sell 4k of that brand

Mser
Mser (@guest_349345)
February 6, 2017 17:23

There has to be more to the story. GCZ was one of the best and now it’s sold and drastically cut back. Must have been losing money.

I suspect there is rampant fraud/losses in the industry that takes a few years to wend it’s way thru the financials of these companies (ie not recognizing losses in real time).

FWIW, I bought some Panera gcs from them recently and about 1/3 of the cards had been all or partially drained weeks/months earlier. Previous order also had a couple drained from a 6 card order (several of the drained cards were $200 gcs). Those sorts of losses add up fast.

Singh
Singh (@guest_349301)
February 6, 2017 15:45

I am still waiting on my payment from them for Neiman Marcus deal. Just sent them an email checking on it.

Lantean
Lantean (@guest_349304)
February 6, 2017 15:46

we’re all waiting… it takes about 10 days since you got the “everything looks ok” email.

Ken
Ken (@guest_349865)
February 7, 2017 19:05

10 *business* days ;).

stvr
stvr (@guest_349299)
February 6, 2017 15:40

I think they are doing a lot of direct from merchant buying now.

roger
roger (@guest_349296)
February 6, 2017 15:30

I sold 2 batches of Neiman Marcus gcs a few weeks back, the orders both say payment processed with one in mail form and one with paypal, but I never got any check or payment from paypal. Anyone know if the payment is suppose to be 3-5 weeks/ 10 days after the payment processed status?

jackgopack4
jackgopack4 (@guest_349323)
February 6, 2017 16:22

I was under the impression 10 business days from payment processed message. Same boat here.

Ken
Ken (@guest_349863)
February 7, 2017 19:04

I only sold a single $100 card to test things and I emailed them about this last week. It’s 10 business days from when they process your payment. So a little over two weeks from when you originally submitted the order. I’m still waiting for that $83 and I should receive it tomorrow according to them.

lz80521
lz80521 (@guest_350827)
February 9, 2017 14:30

Ken, have you received the payment?

Ken
Ken (@guest_350833)
February 9, 2017 14:38

No, I have not. Zen CSR says I should have received it, but there’s nothing in my PP account and they have confirmed the email is correct.

Aks
Aks (@guest_351180)
February 10, 2017 03:15

It took 17 days for me to receive payment from Zen.