Gift Certificate new account bonus

I wanted to ask if anyone has had any issues with people abusing sign-up rewards, namely gift certificates.

I did a search here in this forum and didn't turn up anything (hope I didn't miss something).

I just opened my Zen Cart shop yesterday. Everything is working perfectly. I have a $5 gift certificate reward for new accounts, and a lot of people have been cashing theirs in.

TODAY, however, I noticed that one gal placed an order and used a $10 gift certificate. I haven't made any sales on the actual gift certificates in my shop yet - so I know she wasn't using that. From what I understand, people can send gift certificate amounts to each other, but does that apply to the store-sent one for new accounts?

I am a little worried that she might have made two accounts and sent herself the new account gift certificate balance to claim $10 worth of products instead of just $5. If this is the case, I'm pretty frustrated - and I'm considering changing the new account bonus to a % off coupon instead of a gift certificate.

I'm interested in hearing what people here think, and what their opinions/suggestions are!

Thank you. :smile:

If your customers are the type who would abuse gift certificates, then it may be better to give an amount-off coupon instead, since you can limit how many times a coupon is used by a customer, and set an expiry date as well.

I know. I am definitely considering it. I don't want to be paranoid but seeing that this morning kind of 'cheesed' me off. I love giving things to my customers, so being pushed to the point where I have to change what the bonus is to prevent fraud is really frustrating.

Thanks for your input Dr. Byte. I guess I was ranting more than anything.

You could look in the Gift Certificate/Coupons ... Gift Certificates sent ... and see who sent the $5.00 GV to the customer who used the $10.00 on the order ...

Was it a friend? Or does it look like the customer tried to create two accounts?

Again, the suggestion for the Discount Coupon is the better way to go to prevent sharing as the addresses would have to be valid and you can set the Discount Coupons to be limited to 1 use per customer ...