Ripped off by Dunkin Donuts

[DeltaSierra]

Hope this is in the right section

Two days ago, hubby stopped by the Dunkin near his work to pick up two $50 gift cards to give to our friends. Today we gave the cards, and when our friends tried to use them, one card had only $1.50 on it, and the other had only $3.00!!!!!

Not much we can do at this point, we'll have to go back to the DD that hubby went to on the 26th and see if we can figure out what happened. Thankfully, he paid with a credit card, so if all else fails, we'll call the CC company and see if they can help. IN the meantime, we stopped by the local DD that our friends go to (hubby had purchased the cards at a diff one in Mass, we live in NH, which is where the DD our friends go to is,) and got two new cards with verified $50 on each. I'm pissed.

[fma_fanatic]

Just curious, but is there a way to check the activity on the cards? It sounds a lot like someone got the gift card numbers and may have held onto them until it was verified there were funds and used them that way. DD does have an online store. They also have an app that's just like the Starbucks app too.

[HiddenMica]

There are MANY gift cards that will have on them the numbers listed on the back. A person will walk in, take a picture of it with their phone, then use it to buy stuff online once they find it activated. It's why a lot of them now a days don't have the numbers listed on them or are in paper sleeves. It's actually a really common scam.

[Pixilated]

Just curious, but is there a way to check the activity on the cards? *snip*

At my store once payment goes through there's an electronic notification on the cash register indicating the card is activated, AND the receipt the customer gets has a notification on it that the card has $XX on it.

I don't work for a Dunkin' Donuts, though, so they may have a different system.

I'm wondering if the person who ran them through the machine was a newbie and just screwed up the process. It can be kinda confusing if you're not used to it.

[Dreamstalker]

The newbie angle would make more sense if the actual amount and purchased amount were similar; but if it was activated for say $5.00 rather than $50.00 you'd catch that.

Were the cards on a paper 'hanger', or just in a rack at the register? A lot of the older stock of gift cards we carry have the PIN completely exposed (no silver scratch-off ink), so someone could have noted the card info down, kept trying it online until it went through as good and quickly used/transferred the balance to a different card. I think you can check activity once the card is registered online...if it hasn't already been registered.

[DeltaSierra]

The newbie angle would make more sense if the actual amount and purchased amount were similar; but if it was activated for say $5.00 rather than $50.00 you'd catch that.

Were the cards on a paper 'hanger', or just in a rack at the register? A lot of the older stock of gift cards we carry have the PIN completely exposed (no silver scratch-off ink), so someone could have noted the card info down, kept trying it online until it went through as good and quickly used/transferred the balance to a different card. I think you can check activity once the card is registered online...if it hasn't already been registered.

I think they were just in a plastic holder in front of the registers. We're going to see if the activity can be tracked and figure out what happened.

[Teefies2]

A few years ago, there was a scam going around where the cashier would switch the cards after them being paid for. I'm not sure how it was done, but I do know that one person at the Walmart I worked for got arrested for doing that very thing. Good luck!

[sms001]

SO glad your friends know you well enough and are nice enough to tell you, Delta. Too much cynicism or just being passive aggressive at your perceived cheapness would have been a mess to untangle, on top of being out 95 bucks! Good luck recouping.

[crinklestein]

I remember about 10 years ago when Circuit City was still around, I grabbed a gift card off the rack to buy for my parents for Christmas. I took it to the counter and said I wanted to put $100 on it. They swiped it and said, "You want to put $100 MORE on it?" I was confused so I repeated that I just wanted to put $100 on there. He said, "There already $10,000 on here." But before I could grab it out of his hands he checked online and found that it was in error. The card was created with that balance on there. They could see that no payment was received for that card. So they blanked out the balance and put $100 on there. DRAT!

[shopgirl15]

Hope this is in the right section

Two days ago, hubby stopped by the Dunkin near his work to pick up two $50 gift cards to give to our friends. Today we gave the cards, and when our friends tried to use them, one card had only $1.50 on it, and the other had only $3.00!!!!!

Not much we can do at this point, we'll have to go back to the DD that hubby went to on the 26th and see if we can figure out what happened. Thankfully, he paid with a credit card, so if all else fails, we'll call the CC company and see if they can help. IN the meantime, we stopped by the local DD that our friends go to (hubby had purchased the cards at a diff one in Mass, we live in NH, which is where the DD our friends go to is,) and got two new cards with verified $50 on each. I'm pissed.

Same happened to me at a restaurant where I bought a gift card for my mom (with cash) - when we tried to pay with it they claimed it had ZERO balance on it. Fortunately I had the receipt handy which clarified the issue.

[Monterey Jack]

Same happened to me at a restaurant where I bought a gift card for my mom (with cash) - when we tried to pay with it they claimed it had ZERO balance on it. Fortunately I had the receipt handy which clarified the issue.

That's why I encourage all of the customers at work purchasing gift cards to hold onto the receipts until the cards are actually used (and this being the Christmas season, there were a LOT of gift cards being sold). Who wants to spend $50 or $100 on a gift card and find out some asshat has already jacked it?

[FenigDurak]

Any updates?

[DeltaSierra]

We have issues with the credit card company sometimes taking WEEKS to post charges on our account that we can see online. We want to know if we were charged the full $100 or if we were only charged $4.50 that was puton the cards. Then once we know we can take proof to Dunkin or call the CC company and initiate a chargeback. Still nothing posted on our CC account so as soon as it shows up I'll let you know.

[DeltaSierra]

I promised an update...unfortunately its not a good one. I was pestering hubby as to why he hadn't made phone calls to the CC company or to Dunkin to find out what's going on, as he kept saying he was going to... long story short - he admitted he paid cash (doofus!!!) and lost the receipt.

The look on his face said everything - he actually said "Don't say it --- don't say it!!! I know you want to say it!" because we have a long-standing rule that stuff like this gets paid by CC because of the safety and guarantee, and ALL RECEIPTS ARE PUT IN THE RECEIPT ENVELOPE (we have a plastic multi-pocket envelope that *all* receipts except maybe fast food/dollar store stuff goes in). He screwed up on both ends. *sigh*

On one hand he gets brownie points for bringing me a latte when he picked me up from work, saying 'I know I'm a dipshit but you still love me right?" but OY - especially considering the "save the receipts on the receipt envelope" was his idea. He learned an expensive lesson.