How Can Best Buy be selling Liftime Cards?

[JasonRossSmith]

Saw a post on E-Bay where a Lifetime Activation card is being sold. The auction states it was purchased like this week (6-23-2006) at Best Buy.

How can that be if these were discontinued? I don't want to link to it, but the item number is: 330002458209

[TriBruin]

Saw a post on E-Bay where a Lifetime Activation card is being sold. The auction states it was purchased like this week (6-23-2006) at Best Buy.

How can that be if these were discontinued? I don't want to link to it, but the item number is: 330002458209

For a while, right after Lifetime was discountinued, "some" BBs did not return their stock of LT Gift Cards (as requested by Tivo) and left them on the shelves. I would have suspected that they were all found and sold fairly quickly. Someone must have found one buried in the back of the store somewhere. :(

[pdhenry]

He sold another one in May...

[JasonRossSmith]

Shucks. Wish I coulda found it....

I'm surprised Tivo and BBY didn't have some sort of agreement that they needed activation dates prior to whatever they used for their cut off? I.E. the card would have had to be activated at Best Buy's cash register by mm/dd/yyyy in order for it to be valid, and then who cares about shipping them back.

Best Buy could have just reprogramed their fancy computerized POS system to not allow them to be sold anymore... But heck if I found one, I'd try to buy it too I suppose.

[TiVo Troll]

Oh, how cute! It opened at $299.99 but at $535 right now the "reserve" still hasn't been met. If it had opened at $299 with no reserve it would undoubtedly do just as well! Da' Duke dude is still biddin'!

[GoHokies!]

Oh, how cute! It opened at $299.99 but at $535 right now the "reserve" still hasn't been met. If it had opened at $299 with no reserve it would undoubtedly do just as well! Da' Duke dude is still biddin'!

From a purely profiteering POV, I'd throw a $1,000 reserve on it. If it doesn't get met now, I'm CERTAIN that it will about a month after the S3 is released.

[TiVo Troll]

From a purely profiteering POV, I'd throw a $1,000 reserve on it. If it doesn't get met now, I'm CERTAIN that it will about a month after the S3 is released.

EBay's longest bid-style listings are for 14 days. Other eBay listings in the fixed price format can last for 30 days.

Recently there were 7 concurrent listings from one seller for Lifetime Cards at $699. None sold. There are currently 3 "Buy It Now" (fixed price) listings for as low as $745. None have yet sold.

The highest price that I've seen a Gift Card sell for was in one bid-style listing which went to $700. Most have sold for prices between $560 and $675. The cheapest I've seen a card go for was $425, awhile ago, which was the only time I've seen a price under $500. (I missed buying it; it was up for 2 1/2 hours before it sold.)

[Adam1115]

Wouldn't it be funny if TiVo chose not to honor Lifetime cards sold after 3/15 (or whenver they discontinued lifetime)?

I'm pretty sure they would only be obligated to offer a refund at face value, $299...

[jfh3]

Wouldn't it be funny if TiVo chose not to honor Lifetime cards sold after 3/15 (or whenver they discontinued lifetime)?

I'm pretty sure they would only be obligated to offer a refund at face value, $299...

Except that Tivo has already said they will honor the cards. Given the contract on the card (and the relative few that are out), it doesn't make sense not to.

[TiVo Troll]

From a purely profiteering POV, I'd throw a $1,000 reserve on it. If it doesn't get met now, I'm CERTAIN that it will about a month after the S3 is released.

EBay's longest bid-style listings are for 14 days. Other eBay listings in the fixed price format can last for 30 days.

Recently there were 7 concurrent listings from one seller for Lifetime Cards at $699. None sold. There are currently 3 "Buy It Now" (fixed price) listings for as low as $745. None have yet sold.

The highest price that I've seen a Gift Card sell for was in one bid-style listing which went to $700. Most have sold for prices between $560 and $675. The cheapest I've seen a card go for was $425, awhile ago, which was the only time I've seen a price under $500. (I missed buying it; it was up for 2 1/2 hours before it sold.)

The listing in question (330002458209) ended with a "snipe" bid at the reserve price of $550, the lowest that a TiVo Lifetime Gift Card has sold for recently. This was clearly a case where having a reserve dampened interest in the item and reduced the final selling price. Even dieharddukefan dropped out early.

[GoHokies!]

Yeah, I still think that I would have waited - it's not like it's costing these jokers anything to hold on to their cards (except their initial outlay, I guess), and I would think that the demand would be much higher after the S3's release...

[JasonRossSmith]

Speaking of holding on to them unitl then. I totally blew a chance to buy a pre-grandfather (Jan/2000) lifetimed unit this week.

Looked on the surface like a decent guy just didn't know what he had, so I told him. When I noticed he lied to Ebay (and those that had already bid on it) that it was "lost or broken" instead of just modifying the description to draw attention to that value, I really regretted it.

[Alpinemaps]

^ Karma. You earned yourself good karma by doing the right thing.