Elfster

I have found Elfster to be the best gift-giving website I have ever used. Its user-friendly interface and easy-to-navigate app are wonderful. I especially appreciate that my family and friends can participate in gift exchanges regardless of our locations.

Someone has signed my email address up to this service. When I first was contacted by Elfster requesting I register I did not.
Since then I have been continually receiving emails for a Secret Santa I am not part of. I have tried turning off all notification, as unsubscribe is not an option. But the emails continue.
Reading some forums it appears the only way to stop the emails is in the group settings. As it does not notify who created this group I cannot do this.
I have had to block the elfster domain for our corporate email

Only 1/2 of the people receiving the invitation could join. It says 9 accepted but that's 9 invited. Many of us could not accept or go beyond this screen. So much trying and trying to make it work. A complete waste of time. And thanks for all the spam that you get once you make an account. I can see the invite but can't join or see who's joined. Below it says I'm not participating. All the clicks and trying never got it to work. And the admin had no luck either.

Last year, Elfster worked just fine. I logged in again this year--and everything seemed fine. Had been waiting on the last person to accept the RSVP to begin the Draw. I received an email that person had accepted but when I tried to login: nothing. Did not recognize me...the owner. Had to recreate an account. All empty. Ba Humbug, Elfster.

I've used Elfster (desktop and mobile version, not the app) for 11 going in 12 years, and I'm sticking by it for now, but each year brings changes to the site that make it less and less intuitive slash user friendly. The interface changes and features get moved around, shuffled, recategorized or disappeared altogether. I find it's much more time-consuming than in years past, and seriously, I just wish they'd return to the original (ca. 2011) version. I'll keep using it for now only because it's slightly less aggravating than starting from scratch on another platform.

Sprinkles the elf assisted me today and was able to correct my issue in a matter of seconds. They kept me laughing and even sent some jokes to continue my amusement. Hands down the best online customer service I have ever encountered. Keep it up Elfster!

We will be using Elfster again - it's incredibly easy and replaced hours of mental wrangling - usually done after we've all had our wine - with a complete and accurate exchange! As our family grows the politics of these things require finessing - Elfster took the guesswork out of the process! ALSO - their customer service is lightning fast and pleasant to work with!

I love the fact on Elfster you can make a wish list of things from all over the internet and add notes as far as size, quantity, etc. It even has a place to add notes, or add a gift even if it's something you'd buy in person at a store. I would really think adding the feature of viewing a public wish list could be done with just a link and not starting an account would be useful. My father refuses to sign up even thought this allows me to add great details

I have used it in the past for exchanges and it's great, but I'd love to share it as just an in need of wish list that anyone can view if I give them the link. I could be an option just like the public/private option of who can see your wish list. (private, public to those with an account, public to anyone with a link)

Husband's family decided to use this app/site/whatever it was to do a secret santa. I was thinking ok, great, streamline Christmas shopping. NOPE. All it does is give you links to click on to go buy more crap through more random online stores, where you still have to enter all of the shipping info, billing info, etc., manually. In my case, half the links were to out of stock or unavailable items, and the one I did manage to purchase is now backordered to the end of January - some Christmas gift. I guess the appeal is that you don't have to go through the "hassle" of picking names out of a hat, but seriously, was it that hard? We have all agreed, we will not use again.

Noel from Elfster was able to get back to me super fast! For some reason, the creator of the gifts exchange event made me a child account under my main account. Noel was able to merge the accounts and now we are back on track! Thanks so much for all you do!

I created my account, and it refused to log me in— I tried every password variation that I have ever used, and it just kept saying "incorrect username or password." So I clicked "forgot password, and it sent a reset link to my email. The problem was, the link didn't send me to a page to reset my password. It just sent me to the login page. So I decided to keep trying different passwords, and it eventually locked me out of my account completely. I feel bad for my cousin because I guess she won't get a gift for the exchange…

Hate this site/interface. Family sent it to the wrong email no way to link unless I create a new account and link. Not even getting into managing and switching lists and all the junk it sends and advertises.

I'm a 24-year-old software developer and I struggle to navigate this convoluted website. Now imagine my 80-year-old grandparents trying to figure it out. Literally one of the most poorly-designed websites I've ever been on. All we want from Elfster is to anonymously shuffle and assign names, as well as see what our assigned person put on their wishlist. Instead, we get a company that adds the most random, redundant sections and subsections that do nothing but confuse older generations who aren't computer savvy. It's truly embarrassing how bad the user interface is on this horrible website. Please try and get better, Elfster Team. I understand that anyone skilled enough to help you wouldn't want to work for your loser company, so try and improve from within.

I already disliked the holiday. I tried to eliminate the stress of it all with this app but someone was picked twice and Justin didn't have a secret Santa. Very disappointed, ruined Christmas.
Jan.

I have to say, I think after quite a number of years of struggling with this site, I will look for another or go back to the old fashioned envelopes. Once all the information is fed up and it does the exchange, its fine, but have now struggled on several occasions to amend the members of the group, and today I cannot even access the group to see if recent amendments are correct etc. There is such a lack of information and help, and what should be a simple job take hours. Shame!

Online gift Exchange... perfect for the holidays... - I was trying to figure out an easy way to do a Secret Santa for my office. I actually found this site by fluke [GOOGLE is fantastic] and it is an electronic gift exchange site. You can create a profile, including a wish list, best of all it allows you to anonymously email your Secret Santa instead of filling out useless forms. It reminds me of Evite when you are trying to get your group together. This is an extremely user friendly site. I can't wait to use this in the future.