I wanted to warn readers about two potential problems with purchasing gift cards from eBay.
Issue #1 – Cash Advance Fees
Update: Money Meta Game has a blog and it’s well worth reading. Here is their post on this issue.
Reddit user moneymetagameblog reports that they purchased two eBay gift cards recently during the $72 for $75 sale with a Barclaycard Arrival+. When they checked their statement it showed up as follows:
- Merchant name:Â PP *GIFTCARDMAL
- Merchant category:Â QUASI CASH – MERCHANT
They were unfortunately charged cash advance fees for this purchase and it did not earn points (cash advances never earn points and do not count towards minimum spend requirements). Now this is only how Barclaycard (MasterCard) are coding this transaction so other payment networks/credit card issuers may not be charging cash advance fees.
Issue #2 – No Longer Earning 5x
For awhile now it’s been possible to earn 5x Chase UR points on some eBay purchase, in particular eBay gift cards have been earning 5x Chase UR points (at least from Gift Card Mall). This has made eBay gift card deals much more attractive (and profitable). It looks like this is no longer working either, which is a real shame. I’ve had a lot of readers report this (here are one and two examples).
Final Thoughts
It looks like both problems stems from the same change, purchases made from Gift Card Mall on eBay are now showing as PP *GIFTCARDMAL, in the past they have shown as PAYPAL EBAY MARKTPLC USD. It also looks like they’ve changed their merchant category code (MCC) which is causing some credit card issuers to code it as a cash advance.
There are two reasons why they’d change their MCC: they are onto us (e.g merchants have been complaining about people purchasing discounted gift cards purely for resale), they were able to get a cheaper processing rate with a different MCC. In terms of the second point, different businesses are charged different processing rates based on the risks of charge backs and other issues.
Before everybody decries that the sky is falling, let’s just hold our horses and see how this plays out. For the moment, make sure you’ve set your cash advance limit to $0 and always be aware that there is the potential for things to go wrong. That’s part of this game, if you’re unwilling to take those risks then don’t.
As always, please share your experiences in the comments below.
