Children’s clothing retailer Gymboree Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than two years and plans to shut its Gymboree and Crazy 8-brand store operations. (WSJ) Gymboree sought authorization from the court to continue to honor customer gift cards for 30 days. It has discontinued its GymBucks and Gymboree Rewards programs effective immediately.
Sounds like their gift cards are working for now, and hopefully another 30 days, pending court approval. Use up those gift cards sooner rather than later.
Hat tip to reader bullfrog23414
Hi to all, I need some help here, in my credit report shows BK afiles 8 years ago and because of that chase won’t approved me, also I’m not in the 5-24 rule, as of today my fico
Exp 747
Eqfx 741
Trans 746
100% payment history
10% utilization
Thanks for the post, just used up my gift card successfully. When I placed the order, though, it wouldn’t let me charge the balance to my Gymboree Visa. I had to use a different card. Anybody know what happens to Gymboree Visa during the bankruptcy? Will they demand the whole balance be paid?
Thanks for posting! I quickly used up two of my gift cards.
could get ugly for a reseller if the end user doesn’t use the GC’s in time
And why would that be? The buyer purchase protection/guarantee policies at most GC exchanges and marketplaces explicitly exclude bankruptcies and retailers going out of business.
Buyer could try a chargeback through their credit card company. And the online exchanges (much like amazon and eBay) will almost always side with the buyer in case of a dispute.
A timely chargeback could potentially force the exchange’s hand and allow the buyer to recover the money, yes. However, the money would be recovered from the GC exchange, not the seller. Under the exchange’s T&C, as long as the GC was still active and usable with the correct balance at the time of sale, they would have no grounds for recovering those funds from the seller. Someone else has to take the hit there, whether it be the exchange or the buyer. In fact, partially due to this risk, one of the major players in the market has already taken steps last week to halt all new Gymboree sales.
“And the online exchanges (much like amazon and eBay) will almost always side with the buyer in case of a dispute.”
GC exchanges are not “much like” Amazon and eBay. If you buy from or sell through exchanges often enough, I’m sure you will also come to understand how different their claims resolution processes are. Unfortunately, some of the confusion might have stemmed from the fact that several major players significantly modified their SOPs roughly 1-2 years ago, downsized their investigations teams, and reduced automatic claim investigation services for the smaller bulk sellers. Nowadays, the usual resolution for buyer-initiated claims involves automatically debiting the seller’s account first, and then allowing sellers to appeal the debit using evidence acquired by either the seller or the exchange’s investigations department. Unless you’re an incredibly lazy seller, the seller will always win these claims unless it was a genuine mistake on the seller’s part, or the original retailer deactivated the GC (a bankruptcy does not count). If, for example, a second-hand GC was proven to be hacked by a third-party and fraudulently drained after the date it was sold, the seller will win the claim, at which point it would be up to the discretion of the exchange whether or not to take the hit and refund the buyer.
It simply would not make any business sense for GC exchanges to go against their own terms and conditions for no reason. GC exchanges need to protect their clients (i.e. the sellers), too.
Quote from buyer T&C of one exchange: “If a Retailer were to go out of business or go into bankruptcy prior to your use of all the value on their Gift Card, you understand that your sole and exclusive recourse with respect to the unused value of the Gift Card for that particular Retailer is with the Retailer in question, and, as an unsecured-creditor, you may not be able to recoup the value of any unused Gift Card for such a Retailer. The Guarantee does not apply in the circumstances that a Retailer ceases to honor its Gift Cards due to its going out of business, into bankruptcy or similar circumstances.”
Not always. You just need to base your argument based on ebay/paypal rules and not what you think/moral grounds. I’ve won plenty of ebay/paypal/Amazon claims back when I was a seller.
I guess people knew this weeks in advance, wife and I dropped by one of their newly renovated stores and all the good stuff was already gone (toys, puzzles, etc.)
Crap, i think i did buy some during the holidays, need to check. Thanks for the warning
Edit:
Bought $100 worth…damn, need to hurry up