Complaint Review: CardSnagger - mahopac New York

Here are the facts.

1. The seller John Paul McNally sent in 17 - $100 brand new Starbucks gift cards without the pin numbers revealed.

2. We did not accept the cards from day one nor did we attempt to verify the balances considering we could not determine the origination of the cards as per the seller he purchased them, then exchanged the cards for new ones at a local Starbucks. Unfortunately if you exchange a bad card for a new one, it leaves a trail and catches up with the new ones.The fact we did not verify them means we did not reveal the pins - which are required to use the cards or transfer balances.

3. This sellers order contained $1600 over the $100 limit for this merchant.

4. We had a phone conversation with the seller to explain why his order was denied and worked with him to safely return his cards. He said he understood and was in agreement.

5. The pin numbers were never revealed and the cards were returned in original order.

6. There is a difference in " Closed " and "Zero Balance" . Closed is when there is fraud involved and the merchant closes the cards accordingly. Zero Balance means the cards have been used. Per the seller the cards have been Closed.

7. We strongly recommended the seller to contact the police to file a police report if he felt the cards were stolen. We strongly urged the seller to contact Starbucks to inquire on the balances and why they are closed. He denied both and said he was taking us to court.

In summation, it never seems to fail that fraudulent card sellers always make the most complaints. We handle 100's of transactions daily/weekly and do not have issues with normal everyday sellers or people who sell in bulk legitimately. Perhaps Mr. McNally is innocent and purchased fraudulent cards from someone else and thought he got a deal by trying to flip them over to us. In our conversation with him, he stated he did not have experience with this. We even went over all the ways fraud is committed to help him out in his new venture. At this point we will never know. Only he knows. But if he truly feels he was robbed then he should contact law enforcement. We even offered to do it for him - he denied our assistance.

As a business all we can do is work to protect our integrity. Portals such as this site provide means to unhappy people to make slanderous comments with no way of verifying the information before it is posted. We stand by our decisions and if we had purchased these cards, Mr. McNally would have walked away with his cash, we would have sold these cards and an innocent buyers would have gotten stuck with a worthless card or cards. 

Our goal is not to buy all the cards we can because it is a "good deal" or because we can make a dollar. Our goal is to provide a means for people with unwanted gift cards to be able to monetize them in a fair exchange. With that, we are able to provide immediate savings to our buying customers who buy cards from our inventory at a discount. It is sad that so much effort needs to be put into preventing and detecting fraud to protect our pockets and those of our customers.

We wish Mr. McNally well in his pursuit.

Here are the facts.

Before I start to explain myself please take a minute to listen to this voice message of how Ronald Davis, of 

Card Snagger, offered to help me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nbnj9xkbbk

1. If my cards were not accepted from "day one" why would Card Snagger send me an email to mail in my 17 $100 Starbucks gift cards? Why did they approve me as a bulk seller? This totally contradicts point 3, in their response, as a bulk seller intends to sell more then $3,000 worth of gift cards per month.

2. Whether the card pins were scratched or not is irrelevant as they informed me that they verified the balances on their machine.

3. What they stated in point 2 is a bunch of malarky. I had 20 cards in total obtained from the same source. The 17 that were sent to Card Snagger mysteriously are closed, yet the remaining 3 are OPEN and still with the correct balance. If there were a paper trail all 20 cards should be closed, right? And to top that I have proof of purchase.

4. Yes, I did have a phone conversation and was in agreement. If Card Snagger did not want my cards, fine, there are reputable gift card buying companies that would and have bought my cards in the past. However, I was unaware that my cards would be returned empty.

5. Going back to the voice mail that was left on my phone, you will CLEARLY see that Card Snagger did not recommend me to contact the police, nor contact starbucks, or that they would HELP me by calling the police. The voicemail is borderline THREATNING.

6. Later in the evening after filing this report and receiving the voicemail, I received a call from a private number, it was Ronald Davis (I do have a recording of this, but will not put it up for legality issues) who attempted to intimidate me, threaten me and told me I was making a VERY big mistake by crossing him. He then asked me to meet him in New Jersey, I laughed and told him he has my address. 

Should they wish to respond to this message I will not rebuttal. However, I believe based on the voicemail alone, you can tell what type of company this is. A bunch of smoke and mirrors.

I am not the only one to complain about this company and each complaint that has been filed, is eerily similar to my situation.

I only wish I had researched Card Snagger before hand and continued to deal with Carpool, a reputable company.