Amazon Continues Stealing Gift Cards

On the forums of consumer advocate, Christopher Elliott, another customer, Louis Morgan, has been victimized by Amazon, to the tune of $400:

Amazon Stealing $400+ of Customer Money Again! (Beware of Amazon!)

My take on it: Amazon is brazen. As the U.S. federal government and Florida state government are scaling back their civil asset forfeiture programs due to overwhelming negative publicity, Amazon continues the similar practice of stealing gift card balances, despite having no legal ground to stand on.

Below, is my reply to Morgan’s case, and a reasoned argument that Amazon gift cards should be completely avoided.

The replies Morgan received from Amazon reveal more of Amazon’s hubris, particularly this statement:

Regarding your gift card funds —

We closed your account because you reported an unusual number of problems with your orders. As a result, your unused gift card balance is no longer available.

Let that sink in. Imagine if a bank closed your account and said your bank account balance was no longer available because you were a problem customer. What we are looking at is a different situation, yet it shares similarities. Gift cards have more legal protections than airline miles, which typically have none. Yet, Amazon feels confident in flouting the law and enhancing their bottom line through theft of gift card balances and Amazon Seller account balances.

The recurring theme among Elliott commentators is that we cannot judge Amazon having heard only the customer’s side of the story. Surely, Amazon’s actions are legitimate and Morgan is omitting nefarious activity. However, Amazon is the judge, jury, and executioner. They hold the cards and when they ban you, they cut access to your account history and information while retaining it for themselves. Further, Amazon often declines to articulate its position even to the injured party.

When we read Amazon or Yelp reviews, do we care about the position of the manufacturer, distributor, or business owner? No—typically we look for a concordance of evidence from multiple reviewers (while perhaps using tools like www.fakespot.com). The evidence that Amazon is systematically stealing gift card balances, and that this practice has been going on since 2008, is approaching consilience.

How many stories go untold from customers who were actually doing shady things such as trading Amazon gift cards for BitCoin? As a government practice, the tide is turning against civil asset forfeiture—the U.S. federal government has suspended its equitable-sharing program and in Florida, effective 7/01/2016, Brandes’ bill (SB 1534) takes effect, massively reforming Florida’s civil asset forfeiture practices.

What Amazon does is reminiscent of civil asset forfeiture. In theory, one could apply one bad gift card to their account—perhaps received as a birthday gift or from a web donation—and end up forfeiting their entire gift card balance. Amazon encourages maintaining large gift card balances through offers such as their current “Buy $100, get $5” offer, obviously because resting gift card balances help maximize their free cash flow. Thus, they may be complicit.

Essentially, the takeaway for Elliott.org commentators and others is that the counterparty risk for resting Amazon gift card balances is alarmingly high. Since Amazon gift cards are typically acquired at close to 100% of face value, their counterparty risk needs to be very close to zero for them to be a good medium of exchange in countries with reliable banking systems such as the United States. Since banks typically pay no interest, it would be unwise to keep your money in a bank that had even 0.01% risk of balance forfeiture. Americans do not typically have to worry about bank defaults thanks to FDIC insurance. There is no similar insurance for your Amazon gift card funds. Therefore, Amazon gift cards should be avoided by gift-givers and for online trades. Recipients of Amazon gift cards should warn the sender about Amazon and should redeem their gift cards quickly to reduce risk of forfeiture.

Amazon Jolly Roger

7 thoughts on “Amazon Continues Stealing Gift Cards

  1. I received a $25 gift card from a relative for Christmas Amazon stole my money and froze my account I can nor even sign it to see why they refuse to return my call and do the customer service shuffle when I call. why isn’t there a way to end this.

  2. Same thing I orderd a knife and a Bluetooth speaker.. knife never came and I have 20 dollars available with online gift card. When I call in they say this and I quote….” for diss one herer we escalate to account specialist and it will be done by chweny fo hour …go diss one here “

    1. As far as I know the representatives at this level do not even know that what they are saying is a total lie. Account specialists never contact blacklisted customers as a matter of policy.

  3. Hi there,
    I was bought a few gift cards for amazon.ca
    There we’re bought for me and sent to me with the amazon webpage to deposit to my account ect. The gift cards we’re not bought off any web page or anything like that. I currently have an $800.00 balance on my account and I got an email from amazon saying “we have closed your account for use of invalid gift cards” ofcourse I responded to this email very fast knowing I have a large balance on the web site.
    I called the following morning spoke to someome left message for the team to get back to me. I waited the 24 hours called agian left another note on my file a few hours layer I got the exact same email as I did the first time “we have closed your account for use of invalid gift cards ” like I said every gift card was bought from me and sent to me from amazon.ca website not off a gift card site or anything like that. Its now been 48 hours with no response no nothing and I’m not sire what to do… I have used the site alot have a good account standing with them and I’m stuck… They took 800,00 from me and I can’t do a single thing… Someome please help!

    1. If you received the gift cards as part of a trade, it is possible they were purchased with a stolen payment card which led to a chargeback. Then, Amazon lost the money for the gift card and when this happens, they ban whomever applied the gift card to their account (you) and seize all your gift card balance. They lie on the phone saying you will get a call in 24 hours which does not happen. Your only recourse is to complain to consumer advocates, government agencies, and/or sue them.

      It is not legal at all for them to refuse to honor your gift card balance in its entirety due to a portion of the gift card balance being invalid. They should just take away the portion that was invalid. Moreover, it is impossible for them to prove that you knowingly accepted invalid gift cards. Someone else could give or trade you a bad gift card and it would not be your fault. Amazon should not be allowed to blame the victim like this. In fact, there are already laws against their actions in most countries, and yet they persist.

  4. I have over $1000 of gift card balance was forfeirted by Amazon without giving a valid reason. They kept telling that the gift cards are invalid. I told them that I purchased them from Kroger and have valid receipt for them. But they only replied me with the same response, and would not refund me!!! How can AMazon just steal $1000 from the customer???

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