Gail Cook still remembers how happy she felt when she received a $250 gift card for Christmas.
"When I opened the card and it was $250, I was so ecstatic," she said. "I'm like man, I could do so much with this $250."
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WATCH HEREIn fact, Gail says she knew exactly what she would use it for.
"I was waiting for one particular purchase that I knew I was gonna buy," she said. "It was a cellphone."
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So she saved some money and headed to a cellphone store a few weeks later, only to find out at checkout that there was a problem with the card.
"He said these are missing some numbers," she remembers the clerk at the cellphone store told her. "They don't have all the numbers. I'm like, what are you talking about?"
The card was missing several numbers and the magnetic stripe was not working, she said. So she called the number on the back of the card and spoke to a woman she said gave her specific instructions on what she needed to do.
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"Copy the front and back of the card, copy the receipt," Gail said she was told. "Thank God the receipt was with the gift card. Send it to us, to their email and we'll replace it."
But almost two months after sending the documents, Gail said she was still waiting.
"I have checked my email every day," she said. "And I'm like, I really need somebody else to help me with this."
That's when she reached out to NBC6 Responds.
A InComm Payments’ spokesperson told NBC6 in a statement that the company "...takes concerns from cardholders very seriously, and we regret the frustration that Ms. Cook has experienced." They could not comment specifically on Gail's situation, citing "policy and privacy restrictions".
But a few days after NBC6 Responds got involved, Gail received a voicemail telling her a replacement card was on the way. That card eventually arrived.
"I have $250 in my pocket that I can use," she said. "Gas station, groceries, you name it!"
If you plan to give a gift card, make sure you include a gift receipt. That will come in handy if there ends up being an issue with the card.
