I waited, and waited, for Raise to respond to my inquiry on bulk selling gift cards, but they never responded to me so I will run this post without it. It wasn’t a very specific query, just if they could outline what the benefits were of the Raise bulk selling program. In their defense, I used one of my many email addresses that I use to separate so I was a nobody. Maybe I should have used my Chasing The Points email address and do a DYKWIA.
That being said, Chuck Sithe who writes at Doctor of Credit has done a phenomenal job at keeping on top of Raise. I don’t shop with Raise too much because I have a couple of my gripes with Raise. They are:
- Multiple purchases in 1 click from a portal only tracks the first purchase
- As Chuck mentioned, in this post, one transaction a day or multiple clicks to Raise and purchases
- Here’s the biggest gripe: the dang gift card I was about to buy was purchased by someone else!
It takes me a little bit of time to purchase a gift card because I calculate rates found on GiftCard Granny and factor in the buy % from TopCashBack. By the time I’m about to check out, the gift card is already sold. The demand for gift cards on Raise is something else. It’s great that inventory is moving and in real time, but sucks for the analytical customer. It’s a shame they don’t put a timer and a waiting list queue like Amazon’s Lightning Deals.
As a reminder, I am a bulk seller with CardPool and GiftCard Zen. I like how they’re more “traditional” in that they set the price at which they will buy. You know what you’re expecting. When you sell on Raise, you the seller, determine the rate at which you sell. However, at a minimum Raise will take 15% as a fee. It’s their business model, and it’s not something I would participate in because it is just too darn expensive.
Enter TopCashBack:
As Chuck mentioned, TopCashBack used to pay out $1.50 for selling a gift card, but it is not boosted to $5. With a flat rate of $5 return, this means you can make money even after Raise takes their 15%. I don’t know the minimum that you need to sell on Raise, but the lower the better. I’ll use $25 for illustrations for this post, and that is the generally accepted minimum at many gift card exchanges.
If you are able to source your $25 gift card for 10% off and sold it at $22.50, that means Raise takes $3.38. That $5 covers their fee, and you’ll be making $1.63 for every $25 card. Obviously, you could earn more if you sell your $25 gift card at a less of a discount. I’ve seen gift cards fly off the shelf at 1% off.
What Does This Mean?
You don’t have to go nuts and do all the research of finding discounted gift cards, all you need to do is use your regular miles or points earning credit card and buy at face value and just sell on Raise with TopCashBack. Pro Tip: Go to Wholefoods and buy as many $25 gift cards as you can get. Why? Their highly desirable, will sell fast, and you can earn some wicked grocery store bonus points.
There is an update from Chuck that he received $1.50 back for selling a gift card despite the $5 listing on TopCashBack. So you may need to submit some missing cashback claims with TopCashBack.
Yeah, I’ve wondered what the minimum is. I recently sold a $10 Sears gc and it did not track, despite using the one-per-day method which has been working flawlessly for me. So I wonder if there is a minimum of $20 or $25.
I can definitely say that $50 gc works. Most likely, if there’s a minimum, it’s more like $20 or $25.
Thanks for experimenting, at this time, I don’t have any gift cards available to test
Sending missing claims to TCB seems like a hopeless attempt. I personally have never been successful.
I have stopped using TCB for all portal purchases. Their Customer Service is horrendous. Total waste of time. When TCB works properly, it’s great. When it doesn’t, you might as well give up.
I’m sorry to hear that both of you have poor experiences. The only portal I have issues from time to time is UPromise for their customer service.
I just had a purchase on TCB to Gyft not track and now I’m going through the rigmarole, and will likely take 2 months to pay out. I do like how it queues up and it’s “on ice” and they’ll automatically submit after the allotted time, I think it’s 7 days?
Isn’t the portal cashback limited to the first $1000 bought/sold at raise?
Looks like it’s only purchases, from TCB:
Please note: After you have placed over $1,000 in lifetime purchases on Raise.com, you will no longer be eligible for cash back.
Are you sure? I got 1 $5 for first sell, but after that I didn’t get any tracked sell. I thought it was since I had crossed $1000 in Lifetime purchase already.
I can’t say for sure. There’s a lot of confusing things with Raise and TCB. Chuck investigated that there is no limit, but the T&C says there is. I crossed $1k in purchases with Raise and sometimes it tracks and sometimes it doesn’t.
Oh, I should have kept going through TCB. After few failures, I thought, they are properly following the limit, so another 28 cards I sold after finally giving up on it, I didn’t use them. I guess, I should have persisted. Anyways, I will go through TCB once again and will let you know if it tracks.
If it doesn’t track, it’s good to just submit a missing claims and see what happens since TCB sees the click through
I sold few cards, its tracking. But unfortunately its tracking as $1.50 and not $5. I know $1.50 was the old rate and had a success with first sell which yielded $5. I guess, I can fill wrong cashback claim, but I am afraid, if they investigate and then say “No Cash Back after $1000 purchase” then I might loose all of these too. But I will still go ahead and file a claim, lets see how it goes. Anyways, I have made money from sell so even if I loose this, will still do for experiment.
That is strange, you’re the first to report something like that before
Did you experience it? All the sells I am doing last few days are tracking at only $1.5 and not $5 and Chuck from Doctor of Credit also reported same. So if it doesn’t track at $5, then your example given above may not turn out to be money maker.
My last sale on Raise, I did not click through TCB. I just went straight into the bulk listing.
As a side note, I was recently accepted to display Raise affiliate marketing ads and they say anyone who crosses the 1k revenue does not pay out. That corroborates the text limit on TCB, but contradicts the TCB customer service. I am now leaning on TCB CS being wrong and any of the orders that track are a fluke.
has anyone ever had a claim with a positive response? Mine always go unanswered or they say they are contacting the other party and I never receive cashback. I wish Raise would use another portal beside TCB.
There’s a feature on TCB where you can post a comment in regards to the ticket. So I always leave one every 30 days asking for a status update.
Have you tried that?
I believe I’ve gotten some positive responses, even with Raise, but Raise takes a particularly long time. In this case, I’m not sure it’s TCB’s fault, though I know many don’t like TCB response time in general.
For me, TCB’s response time has been pretty quick. Like you mentioned, the responses from the vendors getting the CB is where it takes forever and ever sometimes
Update: the payout for a new listing on raise on TCB now officially says $1.50
Sending missing cases to TCB appears to be a sad endeavor. I for one have never been effective.