Vanilla giftReviews 438

The first card was lost in the mail, have the receipt but they won't cancel and reissue unless you have the card...how do you do that with a lost card? Second time the "new" card had numbers scratched off so you couldn't activate it. To get a replacement requires going through their case process which has requirements that seem nearly impossible to complete. Seems like a scam to me.

I was given as $500.00 Vanilla gift card on 3/15/23 as a retirement present from my staff. When I got home later the same day, I called Vanilla to check the amount and was told the balance was $2.50. I learned someone had made four (4) fraudulent purchases the same day from Clinique, all between 3:00-3:30pm. After filing a claim and many follow-up calls, the balance as of 9/21/23 is now up to $379.00. What I don't understand is if all purchases were from the same location, why is the full amount not being restored! When we filed the claim, we were told it would take 90 business days to complete their "investigation". We've gone past that timeframe and for the past 2 weeks, we've been told on three separate calls to check back in 48 business hours. I'm on hold right now asking for a supervisor but don't think that's going to get me anywhere.
Seems like the vast majority of reviews on this page are extremely poor at best. Wondering if there's enough here to file a class action suit?

For the second time, I received a card that didn't work. Customer service is useless when it comes to resolving these issues. A total scam!

Losey services. Lousey and horrendous company. The customer service doesn't know how to deal with its problems. Don't attempr to get answers or satisfaction nor your money

I have been on the phone for over an hour and a half with three different people, they don't speak or understand English well and started to get rude and aggravated with me for not understanding them after I tried to politely say I couldn't understand them due to my phone not being great rather than just telling them that i can't understand them because of how thick the accent and poor quality the phones they use are. I couldn't get any help and to get my card taken care of i have to email them my personal information including my photo ID without getting an email from them to assure me that it was official and not just some random person's email I'm sending it to. Avoid at all costs unless you want to be taken on a long angry ride with the end destination being told that you have to wait up to 90 DAYS to even get anything to tell you that your issue is being processed.

I made a (bill) payment on the card went to go make another (bill) payment and my card gets declined I call them they said they locked my card due to me checking my balance online now I have to wait for a payment to stop pending which is also not granted to go threw. Then I have to call them back and then have to wait 7-10 business days in order to pay my bills to receive another card.

Received two gift cards, purchased from Walmart. No details about activating the card, so I used it. Didn't work. With the second card, called to activate it. Also a problem. Have to wait 7-10 days for a new card. WALMART SHOULD BE ASHAMED TO SELL THESE CRAP CARDS.

My daughter received a $200 Vanilla gift card in June. I kept telling her to spend the money. My aunt inlaw got scammed out $2000 May 2022. My aunt kept getting the run around. My daughter had the $200 until she check Sept14,2023. There needs to be a Class Action lawsuit against Vanilla gift cards.

This card is as close to worthless as it can be.
The card recommended by scammers worldwide. That's about all its good for. ANYTHING that asks for a zip code (paypal, venmo, cashapp, etc. you are screwed. Complete garbage zero stars if I could.
BUYER BEWARE.
In-law got this card when encouraged by a scammer. We managed to find the scammer before this card was used by him. Now we are struggling to use it for legitimate purposes. You're better off with anything other than vanillacard.

I got a $20 gift card for my birthday. A month later I registered it on the Vanilla site entering my logon and
Password. The next day when I went to use the card all of the money was gone except for $.17 cents. Someone had used all the money to make purchases from Microsoft. Even though the transactions had
Numbers for the purchases. I contacted Customer Service and all they did was had me make out paperwork. A month later I got an email asking for some more paper work. Two months later I still have no results. It seems hard to believe that someone outside the Vanilla Company could have got the card number, my login, And my password. I would recommend you research this company before buying one of their gift cards.
Their gift cards.

Someone steal money from my card. I submit an investigation. After 57 days under investigation they don't gave me my money back. I told my boyfriend never buy a vanilla as a present.

They placed a security hold on the card after only one small purchase. Tried to get my $$ back and was as difficult as hell, UNTIL I lodged an official complaint with https://www.consumerfinance.gov/
Got a quick response and GOT MY MONEY BACK!

My wife and daughter bought me 2 separate gift cards from this company, for father's day. The pleasure of receiving such wonderfully gifts were destroyed immediately however.
Both cards had damaged to the middle numbers on them, rendering them useless. I attempted to contact this company and found it a nightmare to navigate their convoluted system and had to go to the loss/stolen section to begin to start my claim. This was done in June of 2023. After sending them all required documentation, it took 30 Business days to receive only one of the replacement gift cards. To this day, 9/11/23, I am STILL trying to get a replacement for the other card. It is now my responsibility to RESEND all required documents, that they already have prooving the initial cases of damage. The representatives are almost worthless as I could not understand most of what they were saying without having them repeat it several time. This company in a US based company, however, their customer service is outsourced to other countries. I've been placed on hold for over 30 mins trying to speak with a supervisor about this matter.
SAVE YOURSELF and the loved ones you "gifting". The only thing you'll be giving them is endless frustration and disrespect from the care they will receive from customer service. Horrible Company.

Got a $500 virtual Vanilla Gift Card from my boss. Tried to purchase a $490 tv at Best Buy.
The transaction was denied but the money appeared on the statement as "Transaction Complete" and the name of the merchant had nothing to do with Best Buy.

I immediately called customer support and reported the fact. They opened a case and asked me to call back in 7 business days. Called back and they told me to call back after another 7 business days.
Called back and I was told my case was opened incorrectly by the previous customer care representative and they would need to open a new case and start from scratch. It should take 10 days...they said.
10 days went by and I called them. Now I was told the case was under review and it should take up to 90 days to have it resolved.
Today I called them again and I was informer that "upon investigations, nothing wrong was found and I was supposed to refer to the service agreement.

This should be referred to the legal authorities and that's what I'm doing.

This is clearly a SCAM stablished to fool and take advantage of the public and needs to be STOPPED.

Please,
BE AWARE

We received a Vanilla gift e-gift card from a friend for Christmas last year. It was just a little over a month ago when I tried using it. I checked the balance to be sure and it was still the full amount we were given. I tried using it online initially but it git declined and I got a message saying to try using it at other merchants or using it at a store. I did what was recommended, even tried putting on Apple Pay but same thing, it got declined again. I then called customer service, was on hold for almost 30 minutes before someone finally took my call. I was told that the fund is on hold for possible fraud because the balance was checked online (wait, what?! Fraud because the balance was checked online?!). The responsible team will need to investigate and WILL TAKE 30 DAYS for them to come up with the decision if they will re-issue the fund and refund the purchaser. It's been a little over weeks since my call, and yeah, no one has reached out for any updates.

This is a joke! They may be the fraudulent one! So please, do not use or even consider! There are other options out there that's so much better than this company!

Bought the card so my husbands caregivers could buy food, supplies etc while I was gone. Worked fine for the first 8 days and 11 purchases. But then for some reason Visa decided the card was compromised and potentially fraudulent activity when a pizza was ordered from one of the oldest businesses in our town. A hold was placed on the card and the caregivers had to pay out of pocket for all purchases until my return. Customer service phone conversation was useless and infuriating.

Amazon, ebay, pawnmate etc... will not accept... They freeze remaing balance when waitting for money to be released back.

I purchased the vanilla card loaded it with $300 and gave it as a gift and the recipient of the card couldn't use it because some of the numbers were missing so contacted the customer service which is awful did everything they asked me to do and was told it would take possibly 45 to 90 days and I would receive a phone call and email at some point so after a couple weeks of hearing nothing I called and was told the case is still being investigated so couple more weeks later I called and they said I was approved for a new card but couldn't tell me exactly when it would be shipped to me and it's been almost three months and still nothing so I guess on the 90th day they'll send it. I've talked to customer service 4 times and they act as if it's my fault there card was defective and giving me attitude because I'm asking questions so I'll never purchase another gift card from any company again, they're making hard for other companies because of their unfair process of solving issues especially when it's there fault. Never Again!

I bought a $200 gift card so me and my can use out of town but when I got the card and the mail the money was gone so I am out for $200 this is not a good place to do business with they will still your money I was going to get a 1000 dollar gift Card but something told me to get a $200 to see how it works now I know don't fall for this card company