What is a gift certificate?

When you receive a gift certificate for a store in SL, do you take that to mean that you now have xxx amount of lindens to spend at that store, without expending any of your own lindens?

That's what I thought, anyway...

I just discovered that I have a gift certificate which requires me to buy something at the store, with my own dinero, and then get reimbursed.

This does not sound like a gift certificate; that's more like a 100% rebate.

It's not a huge issue for me, as I have the lindens in my account, but if I give a gift certificate to someone as, you know, a gift, it's with the expectation that the recipient will not have to use his/her own lindens.

Am I nuts? (on this issue, that is )

Nope, you're not crazy; that's a rebate, not a true gift certificate. As a gentle hint, you might want to give your friend one of the automatic wearable gift cards.

You are not crazy in your thinking (eta: on this issue any way )

I think some of the stores do this so they do not have the expense of a true gift card solution. It costs them nothing to create a notecard or object to serve as a gift certificate that is really a rebate program.

Another way I have seen this done is you fill out a notecard with what items you want and send it back to the owner with the gift certificate and they send you the items.

When I had m grand opening for one of my stores I looked at the sort of gift cards that u wear to redeem- but they were expensive setups and also required a bit of a learning curve to get started with..so I went the easy route too and just gave out a prim with my store logo and the amount of the gift cert - matter a fact I just sent $100 Linden gift certificate to the group members of Talon Faire. I included in the notice that to redeem them the buyer should make a purchase and then drop me a notecard with their name and what they bought and I wd refund the $100 Lindens. Works the same I suppose other than having to fork it over first and then get it back. However if I were going to buy something anyway- I would be spending the money regardless- so having a rebate as opposed too actual credit is no difference to me.

Exactly! Those wearable gift cards are great, and that's what had expected when I received the gift certificate (as did my friend, who gave me the gift)...so she and I were quite surprised to discover that it was not a gift card, but a rebate system.

Anyway...thanks for confirming that I wasn't losing my marbles...on this issue.

I completely understand the logic behind doing it the way you did! Made perfect sense.

It's just that when I give a gift, I hate to inconvenience the recipient, and that's how my friend felt, too.

Anyway, rant over now.

Well sorry I guess- it doesn't apply to me then but of course if you were to want to give a gift- or anyone else for that matter- from my store- a simple say so to me would suffice and a dropped note- course i am just small potatoes

I was given a gift certificate a while back for $300. It's not a large sum but I went to the shop to check out the men's clothes which by the way nothing there appealed to me. I figured I would cash it in by getting something which I would then give away as I have many times in the past.

I sent the guy from the shop called DH a notecard asking him how I could cash in the certificate. Although, I saw when he picked up the card he never once responded.

Some time went by and I forgot about it. One day going thru' my inventory I came upon the certificate again. I sent this guy Devin Hill another notecard and again I saw when he picked it up and again I received no response.

I sent him an IM asking why he kept ducking me for a mere $300. He didn't have the balls to respond directly to me but he chose to answer me thru' a third party. He evaded the questions as to why he wouldn't cash in the card and instead said a whole lot of nothing.

It's been over a year and a half and needless to say I still have the certificate in my inventory somewhere and the person who paid for it did so for nothing.

This is just one reason why I have so much dislike for these self described "designers." I can't say they're all like this because they're not. But then, I'm not discussing them. I'm discussing these other scum and there are plenty of them in sl. The bottom line is greed. Greed and the willingness to knowingly sell garbage and not take responsibility for their actions.

no such thing, missy!

Uhm.. OK... Mashed?

I love mashed potatoes.

Yay I feel the luvvv...

Usually a gift card would state it's not redeemable for cash. I guess you could really blame the person who gave you the gift card for not understanding your taste in clothes.

That's hardly the point here. The main factor here is some sleaze ball running a shop who sells certificates then doesn't cash them in. This is the real deal here and not what taste in clothes the person buying the card should of known about.

I wasn't looking for cash as gift certificates are not redeemable that way. It's always exchanged for clothes or whatever they sell in the shop.

Just another in a long line of money grubbing "designers." And to think they do stuff like this for meager amounts, for pennies. Says a whole lot about their way of thinking, their way of being.

@Dekka: Ricardo wanted to get something he could give away, not get cash, if you read his posting well. Geez who would have thought I would ever defend you Ricardo

Anyway, there is only one gift card system that I know of, and that works with its own vendors. Which are single item vendors as well. So it is not so much of not wanting to spend money on a gift system, but not wanting to set up an entire new vendor system for it. Though I like the guy selling this system , its simply not working for me.

As soon as hippoVend for example, comes with a gift certificate system, I bet that most merchants suddenly offer certificates. You can be sure I will. But until then, it will be: buy and get your money back, or drop me a card with which item you want. There simply is no good alternative for merchants that already have a networked vendor system in place. Those using single prim vendors: check out Giants solution

I'm completely unclear what you meant with 'cash in'. You wanted L$ or clothes or?

I get a lot of IMs/Requests/calls from people with questions, problems, demands etc.
Generally I try to respond in a nice way, and not make a fuss about stuff. But how and when I respond is also very dependent on the tone of the message.
People who 'demand' stuff or generally are unpleasant or resentful etc. get treated differently than people who are respectful and sympathetic. If you treat me like i'm an asshole, i'll be happy to comply

If your tone in the message you sent had the same resentment for creators as your post about it, you could be sure you would not get much sympathy from me.
(And i would be another notch on the long list of greedy creators in your head.)

On topic:

Like already stated. Setting up true gift systems require a lot of effort and an initial L$ investment (or a percentage of sales). If the amount of people using gift cards is limited, it's often simply not worth it. Esp. as notecard based giftcards (100% rebate) are very simple to create, the current norm, and generally accepted.

I generally provide 'gift boxes' for those items that are no-transfer and which I expect people like to give away. But even setting those up is a lot of effort.

Richardo - Sorry I consider myself a pretty intelligent guy and it seems I really misunderstood your post and I am too now unclear on what you meant.

Not so hard:

Does this mean:

1. I bought stuff with my L$, then wanted the L$ refunded, because I had a certificate, but i wasn't refunded.
2. I sent the seller a list of items and I expected him to send them to me.
3. I sent the seller a list of items and I expected him to send then to the persons on the list.
4. I expected to get the amount of L$ on the gift certificate, so I could use them to buy stuff in the shop.

Ok, which one did the poster mean? You seem to know.

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