butyourebogus b.

The business process at face is quite simple, as it should be. Verify balance of gift card via website, ship the gift card to CardPool, then wait for your monies.

And it would be this simple, if well, a couple things; CardPool hires idiots. Secondly, same or similar idiots built the processes and guiding rational for the core-business - eh hem, exchanging gift cards for cash.

Check out this play by play. Also, I saved the email chain because it was such an epic fail!

I followed the above listed steps - boom, easy.
(verify balance of $42, ship the card, wait)
CP is MIA for 3 weeks; I email them.
They respond with a "Hey, sorry, oops".
Two days later, they respond with a "Hey, we can't accept this card because the $ value exceeds the $50 limit." And "we'll ship the card back to you."
I email them with their own Verification Email with the $42 balance stated, and ask them to see into the balance again - because duh.
They refuse my request and shut me down with a "we don't divulge Risk practices".
GTFO (really)
So we email back and forth, back and forth. Until finally someone with more brains gets on the sitch, and guiess what they did? Yes they called-in on the card which verified the $42 balance (<$50). Hooray right? No. They sent the card back to me (Oops).
Two weeks pass, the card comes back to me.
Being glutton for punishment, or just feeling that they now "got it" and I really did not want this $42 Dunkin Donuts card, I put that shiet back in the mail... and I waited.
The troglodytes at CardPool then hit me up, via email, stating they received the card and would issue me a fatty check of... wait for it...$27. Yes, indeed somehow the card balance vanished into the stomach of the univers in the interim, from $42 to $27.
Mother of god.
So, we email. And email some more. These half-wits must be working their first customer service job or perhaps... well whatever I'm tired. It just went something like this - "Hey I haven't used this card at all, and Dunkin Donuts transaction system doesn't reflect any charges either, umm the balance is still $42.00". Then they, they $#*!ing, they $#*!ing I swear, "so, do you want the card back or the $27.00?"

I took the card back. Soon after, on my way to work one morning I stopped by the Dunkin Donuts, and gave it to the lady standing in-line waiting to purchase - not a word spoken between us.

Card Pool, $#*! you.