Tuesday, Dan called and asked if I could come over to his apartment. He was having some kind of problem on the computer. When I got there I was relieved to find that it was not a malfunction of his computer, but a problem with the $50 gift card he had purchased earlier that day, when grocery shopping with Frank. Amazon was saying the code was invalid when he tried to redeem it and add the amount to his balance. This is something he's done successfully many times with no problems prior to this. He'd already tried twice and then a third time with me there. We both read the code carefully and he was entering it correctly.
I thought maybe the cashier who rang up the card had forgotten to do something to activate it, so we headed to Hy Vee where we talked to a very nice young woman at the customer service desk. Dan had the card and his receipt and I had him take pictures of the computer screen showing the Amazon message "Invalid" and also the purchase/payment history to show that he hadn't already redeemed it. She spoke with someone there, and then tried to call the vendor who supplies them with gift cards. Unfortunately she didn't get through to them and she didn't have the authority to just swap it out for another. She gave us the telephone numbers for that vendor. Sigh.
The next day I went over to Dan's again and tried calling the gift card vendor--spoke with someone who said they didn't (what was the word -- 'service?' 'support?') Amazon cards. He said we should go on the Amazon web site for help. We were already on the web site, but I did notice a chat option so I chatted with an Amazon customer service person, who transferred me to another person who was best suited to help us. she was very helpful and wanted to see if she could just manually redeem it and get it on his account balance.
Alas--the system just told her it was invalid and should be returned to the store. So...
We called Hy Vee and asked to speak with a manager or someone with the authority to help us. Dan can't afford to write off $50. I explained the sequence of events and the young woman I was speaking with put me on hold and went off to talk to a manager. She came back and said that we could come back in and get a replacement. By this time Dan had heated up his lunch, but she and another person would still be there later in the afternoon, and would be familiar with the situation.
I went home and when Dan called to say that he was finished eating, I picked him up, drove to Hy Vee, and we got the card swapped out for a new one. He asked me to come in while he tried to redeem the new one. That is what you see here. No problem with THIS card. Worked just like it should. Whew!
that is a long story and I can only imagine our frustration with the run around. So glad there was a happy ending as illustrated so well by this triptych.
