Amazon $75 Gift Card [EBay]
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Yeah, but see, it’s free shipping. And safer than T-bills…
agree with #1, these are efficient markets. there’s plenty of people who would value a gift card over par…
Bernie Madoff for one since he can’t leave his house because of that pesky bracelet but he can have this sucker delivered to any address he desires.
Or a better deal…
The Victorias Secret Gift Card in eBay-always selling below face value.
I’d be willing to bid on one if Bess promises to go shopping with me.
is it a convenience yield? managing your gift cards can become complicated.
OK, so it’s a gift card. What’s so special about a gift card?
SPODE
#5 this may resemble a gift card to the untrained eye. But in fact it is a multi-function portable bearer cash equivalent instrument.
Stop surfing ebay all day, and make us laugh. Dance, monkey!
Val
Maybe the buyer is planning to max out the credit card and stop paying the bill. Or declare bankruptcy soon.
eBay = next ponzi scheme to be uncovered…sell the stock now.
Because they could have a paypal coupon of 10% off. Not too long ago, 35% cashback from live.com caused people selling ‘cash’ for 20% higher than actual price.
I see this all the time and I always thought it was some type of money laundering scam.
scary thing is that there are 4 bids out for it.
Now you’re really bored.
let’s see how high we can get it.
@14 the auction’s been over for 4 mins now. you can go back to sleep now.
Makes sense to monetize an asset that you don’t want to use. With free shipping, wasn’t this sold at a discount?
Gift cards make a ton of sense for retailers, given that (a) each on represents an interest-free loan of cash, repayable at some uncertain point in the future and (b) a good chunk of gift cards are never redeemed. So the retailer gets a bunch of cash, never pays interest and doesn’t have to give all of it back.
In a different world, that would be an illegal business practice.
Now, if you could just do that trade 100 million times…
@16 It’s free shipping on eBay not Amazon. Unless someone gets a PayPal discount to pay for this, there is no reason to pay more. Even though there’s free shipping on eBay it’s not at a discount. It’s still spending >$75 on eBay for $75 worth of goods. I call that a premium.
Also, with regard to your (b) point, unused gift card balances in many cases must be turned over to state governments. It depends on the state of incorporation.
While I have your attention, 16, I’ll sell you a $20 bill for $23, and I’ll ship it for free. You won’t find a discount like that anywhere else.
16 here – you’re right about the shipping, in which case it makes little sense, even to pay 76 cents more. (related: why ship the gift card anyway? just email the code #, right?)
As for point (b), I’m assuming that unused gift balances escheat to the state pretty far down the road, like a matter of several years, not months. Still a great deal.
Would make for a great class action: companies are liable for interest on all gift cards issued without full disclosure of the interest saved, likelihood of non-collection and timeframe before funds are escheated to the State. Pennies for the claimants but millions and millions for the lawyers.
@16 – Even better than you think (depending on your view) (c) no standing in a liquidation. Connecticut’s AG recently warned holders of gift cards from a chain going down here to redeem them because they would become worthless. (d) some actually have a time decaying value (e) and an expiration date – if you don’t call your negative interest loan by a date certain, it is declared null and void.
Truly, evil genius at work. CDO squared has nothing on this.
#10′s got it right
/thread!
Actually, Amazon and some others block buyers using credit/bank cards from some “scary” and forbidding lands. So, they get the codes off of ebay.
Of course, if it is a stolen card the highest bidder has in his hands, then why not ? Come one $76.00.
10% off $75 or more
dumb
what is this now the freakonomics blog??
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/how-much-would-you-pay-for-a-50-gift-card-to-target/
I was once at a charity silent auction where one of the prizes was a $200 gift certificate to a bookstore. The charity wasnt so thorough about tax docs, so you could essentially take a deduction for whatever you wound up paying for the prize. Breakeven in a 40% bracket is therefore $333.33, for example. No one simply wants to break even though and, lets face it, how interested are most people in books, so the thing settled at around $220. Then someone who was obviously a reader went in fast and furious and bid $1000, I guess expecting to get a $1000 gift certificate plus a deduction. Doofus though realized the error of his ways, cause the next day I -who bid $220 – got a call saying that the winner relented.
I think #8 above has it right. The only way in which this makes sense if you need to convert the remaining amount of your credit limit into a cash equivalent.
@26 — doesn’t matter how thorough the charity was about tax dox, all you were entitled to deduct as a charitable contribution was the $20 premium to the market value of the gift certificate.
This gift card is a great deflation hedge.
Safer than a matress.
@28: There’s what you’re entitled to deduct and there’s what you actually deduct. Besides, if you’re ever audited, just pull a Geithner.
28 Should have been more clear. This happened before the time when charities were required to provide letters certifying that NO GOODS OR SERVICES WERE PROVIDED….. At that time, a copy of the cancelled check made out to the charity was sufficient proof, therefore, righly or wrongly, tax deduction = $220.
-10% = The new killing it.
the US amazon has different deals than the international sites.
people from other countries pay more for the gift card so that they can use it at the US store.
“more clear” = fortune teller
SPODE
Citibank has a ton of gift cards that you can get 10% below face value if you spend your rewards points.
They do not offer the ability to convert these rewards points directly into cash. (At least on my account)
Possibly the people who are selling these gift cards are buying them with rewards points below face value and reselling them on the open market for above face value?
That would be a motivating value to sell these gift cards online in the first place. It does not put motivation behind someone who would pay more then face value for the cards in the end though. I’m thinking back end discount, fraud, or ill-intent like the above posters mentioned.
The PayPal coupon explanation makes the most sense.
Buying the gift card to max out the cash equivalent on a credit card doesn’t make sense. Couldn’t you do that directly from Amazon? Why would you have to go through eBay and overpay? Amazon will ship their gift cards to you free, also. Almost everything they sell has free shipping.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/how-much-would-you-pay-for-a-50-gift-card-to-target/?scp=2&sq=gift%20card&st=cse
This is some sort of Fraud, judging by the bidders. If you look at the list of bidders for this item, they all have usernames with similar formats (same person?) and all bid on gift certificates.
r***r( 2026)
e***a( 778)
n***l( 133)
9***c( 307)
The answer isn’t in economics, it’s in some sort of fraud activity.
@38 they put asterisks in the usernames for privacy. It’s an eBay thing.
Because the Paypal coupon is usually for a one-time purchase, I don’t think it explains what’s going on here.
This specific buyer has bought 32 gift cards on ebay in the past 2 days as well as stamps. My guess is, he/she has a lot of money on Paypal, wants it out, and doesn’t want to (or can’t) transfer it to a bank.
I’m guessing money laundering.
Or since the buyer is a Power Seller, it’s probably actually tax avoidance.
Everyone who tried to justify this has a cunt for a mouth.
Speaking of cunts…
Q: What’s the difference between Palin’s mouth and her vagina?
A: Only -some- of the things coming out of her vagina are retarded.
It’s not just ebay:
http://deltahedged.com/?p=169
Obvious money scrubbing. Pay for gift card in cash at the store with ill-gotten dosh and then sell on ebay for newly integrated clean moolah.