Always Check Gift Card Balances After Purchase!

They're still trying to resolve it, but we were jipped twenty five bucks!

For Christmas, 2005, my parent gave my Fiancee and me a gift card to Benihana Restaurant.  On the little cardboard encasing that it comes in, my Mom had written "Amount:  $50.  Enjoy Dinner!  Love, Mom and Dad."  If you have ever been to Benihana, you know that $50 is enough for dinner for two, but just barely.  If you don't know Benihana, it's a Japanese style restaurant where they cook right at the table.  It has been portrayed in TV and Movies including Naked Gun and The Office.  The chef twirls his knife, flings around shrimp tails, and puts on a generally fun show.

We were grateful for the gift, and put the card away for later use.

We have a system with gift cards.  My Fiancee keeps a card file of all gift cards that we receive, whether as an actual gift (as in this case), or via rewards points redemptions (such as Discover Cash Back or MyPoints).  If it came in a decorative or elaborate packaging, we dispose of the packaging, and write the amount and where it came from on a post-it.  The card goes into the file until future use.

I know that many cards have "expiration" dates at which time the value begins to decline.  Usually it's by two bucks a month or so.  Well, in California, there are laws against that.  If I pay fifty bucks at a store and give you a card, they have to accept that for $50 a year from now, ten years from now, or basically as long as they are in business.

So, a little over a year later, my Fiancee and I finally decide to have our Benihana dinner.  I ordered the Filet Mignon and she ordered the Scallops.  We shared, making our own little combo.  With one beer, our bill came to $60.  No problem, after the gift card, we are only responsible for $10 plus tip of $9, rounded up to $20.  Well, you can imagine our surprise when the waitress came back saying that the card had $25 and she put $35 on my card.  After the tip, it became a $45 meal.  Not what we planned!

We got the used up card from them, and went home.  I called the number on the back of the card that night, and of course it told me that the balance was $0.  I pressed some number for "transactions."  The most recent transaction was $25 at Benihana, Anaheim.  "Press '9' for your next transaction."  So, I pressed '9'.  "Card activation, $25, December 24, 2005."

This means that $25 was put on the card at the time of purchase.

So, we asked my Mom.  She didn't remember, but said, "If I bought you dinner, for sure I wouldn't have gotten $25.  That's not enough."  I asked if they keep their credit card statements, and thank goodness for parents!  My Dad dug out their statement from more than a year ago, and sure enough, there it was, "12/24/06 Benihana $50".  There was another one for $50 at another restaurant that she got for my sister.

I emailed the folks at Benihana, and got a prompt resonse.  I faxed him my folks' credit card statement, and he's looking into it.

But there is a lesson here.  We should have checked the card balance as soon as we received it.  Now, more than a year later, it's more difficult for the vendor to research the transaction.

Comments

[Deborah]

That is a big disadvantage of gift cards...

[jim]

Yeah, I don't really like gift cards either. There was one time I bought a $50 Home Depot gift card and the darned thing wasn't even activated for some reason. The store charged me (which should activate it at the same time) but it somehow didn't. Booo...

[The Sarcasticynic]

We had an experience at a restaurant where we handed the server two cards - one where we had about $12 and another that had about $50. The intent was for her to exhaust the twelve bucks, keep that card, and charge the balance on the other and return that to us.

She returned both cards, saying "this has zero, and this has (whatever.)" I'm thinking, Why return a card to us with zero balance?? I wrote on each card with pen the balance she claimed. Of course, when we tried to use the cards at the restaurant the next time, the amounts were backwards from what she claimed.

For more fun with plastic, please see:

http://1sttimeinvestor.blogspot.com
/2006/12/losing-funds-on-expired-account.html