What happens if you send an egift card to a dead email address?

[erysichthon]

Let’s say you want to send an electronic gift card (Amazon, Fandango, whatever) to a friend. You go to the appropriate website, put in the person’s email address, provide your credit card information, and CLICK, gift sent. But unbeknownst to you, the friend has recently changed email addresses and hasn’t gotten around to notifying you. The original address you provided at the ecard vendor website is dead and anything sent to that address bounces.

What happens? Does the ecard seller notify you that the gift didn’t go through? Or do they just keep your money and consider it a win? Anyone have any experiences to report?

[Dewey_Finn]

Amazon, for one, allows you to resend a gift card if the giftee didn’t receive it. From their website:

Resend an E-mail Gift Card

If you purchased an E-mail or Text Message gift card that doesn’t arrive, you can resend it to the recipient.

To reissue an E-mail or Text Message gift card you purchased:
Go to Your Orders.
Click the Order ID to reach the Order Summary page.
Click Resend it for the gift card you want to resend.
Review the information regarding the gift card to be reissued, and follow the instructions on the page.
Some e-mail providers give users the option of blocking all e-mail messages that originate outside of their domain. You may want to check with your recipient to make sure their e-mail provider isn’t filtering the e-mail into a “junk” or “spam” folder.

We’ll contact you by e-mail once we’ve canceled the original gift card and issued a new one.

Note: If you do not see a Resend it link, the gift card was most likely redeemed by the recipient.

I assume other companies have similar policies.

[erysichthon]

@Dewey_Finn

Amazon, for one, allows you to resend a gift card if the giftee didn’t receive it. From their website:

I assume other companies have similar policies.

Thanks for finding this! I noted that the “resend” scenario Amazon describes assumes that you already know the ecard never arrived, presumably by checking with the recipient. I’m still wondering, though, if Amazon (or any other seller of egift cards) actually notifies you if the original ecard email bounced.

[Dewey_Finn]

The link says, “If you do not see a Resend it link, the gift card was most likely redeemed by the recipient.” So if you’re not sure, check this. I think they assume you’re in contact with the recipient.