
Ask HN: On eBay, $50 Amazon gift cards are selling for $80-85.What am I missing? - masonic
Here is an item I just came across: a $50 Amazon gift card at a fixed price of $85.<p>That in itself is not the ridiculous part; some people can be tricked into overpaying for anything once in awhile. (Lincoln: &quot;You can fool some of the people...&quot;)<p>But there have <i>already been 4 sales via this listing at $80 or $85 each!</i><p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;offer.ebay.com&#x2F;ws&#x2F;eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidsLogin&amp;item=282876678114&amp;rt=nc&amp;_trksid=p2047675.l2564<p>(You can click on the Item Link to the right to see the original listing.)<p>What am I missing?  Really clumsy money laundering?
======
synaesthesisx
There was a promotional code circulating for 20% off anything on eBay last
week. Yes you read that correctly - 20% off anything, from any seller (got
myself a new 4k monitor). Purely speculating here, but perhaps people were
gaming the system by listing marked-up gift cards and buying their own
listings. During this promotion eBay was paying out sellers the full amount -
which leads me to the following: why was eBay intentionally taking these
losses? Perhaps a last-ditch effort to temporarily boost sales on paper?

It's not coincidence that they are replacing Paypal with Adyen - I think these
are indications that there's some sort of merger or acquisition in the
works...

~~~
always_good
Reminds me of when Bing launched and they had a 20% or so off many retailers
that you clicked from their results. One was Ebay. I must've been 17 or 18 and
used my summer savings to buy silver bars from Ebay 20% off and relist them.

Not long after I noticed they severely restricted the types of discounted
items.

~~~
anxman
It was 30% cash back for the first few days! I’m still using the suitcase that
I bought.

------
MBCook
They may be being used for money laundering.

~~~
freelunch
Money laundering is definitely a possibility since you can buy amazon gift
cards directly from PayPal. I also think some items (not necessarily these
gift cards) are being used as placeholder items for a product or service
(drugs, etc). For instance I saw a very commonly available $2 bottle of salad
dressing go for $20 the other day. I was intrigued and saw that a lot of items
from the seller had sold for mulitples of their market value.

~~~
gt_
This is interesting. I would expect eBay fees to crontradict the utility.

~~~
paulcole
How much does your money launderer charge?

------
dmarlow
For what you lose on each one, you can make up for in volume.

------
WhiteOwlLion
Some buyers are using crypto via a third-party to buy these items on eBay.
They use the Amazon GC afterwards to buy online services or buy a product to
ship to their home country.

eBay seller has to pay a hefty commission to eBay so that is part of the
expense. Seller mails or sends eCode. Both can be risky because the buyer can
refute that it was received. Post office even with signature confirmation is
not always recorded correctly. UPS & FedEx Signature Require is expensive to
use. You also have dishonest "buyers" that will submit a chargeback claim to
the credit card for fraud (card does not work, etc). There's a myriad of
expenses and risk to the seller.

------
mmikeff
Anonymity?

Buy gift card from random ebay person.

Pay for something that you'd rather keep secret using gift card.

Reduced chance of getting caught?

e.g. [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/gift-card-
paymen...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/gift-card-payment)

~~~
joezydeco
You can buy amazon gift cards at almost any retail store, with cash.

That's even _less_ trackable than a payment to an eBay seller.

~~~
O_H_E
That does not apply in the non-US world (Maybe also EU, I don't know if they
are being sold there)

------
damm
So yes you can sell your Amazon Gift cards; there's a market place for people
selling used cards.

[https://wellkeptwallet.com/sell-amazon-gift-card-for-
cash/](https://wellkeptwallet.com/sell-amazon-gift-card-for-cash/)

Why else would you spent 500$ for a 300$ Gift card so you can get the card now
to turn around and sell it for 250$

The profit!

