2½ months work = $54.24

Back in October, I stupidly lost my wallet and all the contents inside. Although it was time-consuming having to call all my credit card issuers and I missed the thirty or so dollars inside, the worst part was that my birthday had been the week before so I’d also lost a bunch of gift cards.

I had the numbers for some, but ironically I didn’t have the information for the one card with the highest value – a Lowe’s gift card with what I’d estimate was about $110 left on it. I was so annoyed with myself for a) losing my wallet and b) not having the information written down, but luckily inspiration struck as I tried to jog out some of my frustration.

I’d actually received the Lowe’s gift card as part of a kitchen promotion in late-2007 after buying $2,000 worth of stainless steel appliances from the store. With that in mind, I called Lowe’s to see if they still had a record of the card they’d issued to me back in 2007 as part of the promotion.

I knew it was a long shot but when I spoke to the Lowe’s customer service representative she said she might be able to track down the information although it could take a while since they’d already archived the 2007 files in a warehouse. Okay, no problem I figured, anything was better than nothing at all.

I did make sure to mention there was the possibility someone had found my wallet and that they might try to redeem the gift cards…implying that time was of the essence. The woman told me she understood and she would look into it.

Fast forward 2½ months and about 10 phone calls later…TODAY I finally heard back from them and there is $54.24 remaining on the card, which will be sent to me in a new Lowe’s gift card via UPS.

Whew. Was it worth it? Honestly at this point it was no longer about the money, it was more about the principle. I first called Lowe’s on Oct. 5, so after a couple weeks my stubbornness came out and I was determined to get an answer out of them, even if it was that the card had no more balance (although I probably would’ve been more pissed off with that answer).

I have to say, part of me wonders if they made it all up and they never really found the card information. To them, maybe $54 was a small, made-up price to pay to get the annoying girl to stop calling every few days. But hey, I’m actually fine with that.

So three pieces of advice from Saver in the City:
1) Don’t lose your wallet. Easier said than done sometimes, so see #2 and #3…
2) In addition to your credit card info, write down all gift card numbers, their PIN #s and the phone number to call if the card is lost/stolen.
3) If you do find yourself communicating with a company about an issue that’s important to you, document everything. Had the situation dragged on, I don’t know if I would have actually written a letter to Lowe’s but I was glad I had a record of all 10 phone conversations including dates/times and the person I spoke to on the phone.

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