In my post PayPal My Cash & eBay Bucks, I mentioned of purchasing gift cards at 20% off. I hit a snafu. One purchase was $40 value in which I paid $32. I received two cards, one $10 and one $20 card for $30. I have messaged the seller and we will see what happens. Thankfully, it is not the higher denomination that I purchased at $400 which I’ve already liquidated on Plastic Jungle.
I mentioned it to the eBay seller and he was able to accommodate me a $10 refund for the difference. I actually made more on these cards because of the $10 refund. At $40 value, I purchased at $32, which is 80%. At $30 value and purchasing at $22, that is 73.33%, an extra 7 and 1/3 savings.
After the incident, it had me thinking what protections would I have on buying through eBay so I searched and found a great link from eBay on buying gift cards. I’ve also decided to limit my exposure through smaller gift card purchases. Recently I have been purchasing $200 and less on the value of the gift card. I run through all the calculations and set the maximum bid price and if I win, I win. For me, the maximum bid price is calculated at the break even price according to GiftCardGranny.com and TopCashBack. I do not account the eBay bucks into the figure.
