I am a Mypoints.com member and have been happily for a couple of years, but recently they have been pissing me off.  For those of you who don't know what Mypoints.com is, it is a website through which you can do various activities or buy things online and earn points doing so. Once you have accumulated a certain number of points, you can redeem them for a gift card or you can donate them to one of the charities they support.

About a week before Thanksgiving, I redeemed my points for a $50 Express gift card. Now, they have had Express gift cards of other amounts, but not $50 until recently and I was holding out for it to become available. I cashed in the minute I saw it was available. They say on the website that it takes 3-6 weeks for the gift cards to arrive. Eight weeks (and much frustration) later, I finally received my gift card in the mail...well after all of the holiday sales. Thanks My Points!

I took my "winnings" and pranced right over to the nearest Express store. I try on a handful of dresses, take forever to make up my mind and finally decided on the dress of my dreams (it was the absolute last one in that store AND it was the perfect size...I never have that kinda luck) and another more casual spring dress. I stroll up to the register only to find out that my gift card is being declined due to a $0 balance. Keep in mind that I am a poor college student and don't exactly have $50 lying around to make the purchase anyways. I call the customer service people to find out that Express can't do anything for me until MyPoints can prove that they put money on the card. I put my precious dresses on hold and leave the store disappointed.

I called My Points twice when I got home just to have them tell me that the person that I need to talk to is "in a meeting" and "gone on lunch". I left my phone number and e-mail address only to receive not one, but ZERO emails or calls from this mystery person whom I need to talk to.

Ben called them today because frankly I was way past my boiling point with these people. It took them two weeks longer than they said it would take only for my card to not have any money on it anyways and now they are giving me the run around for their mistake. Not to mention that it took me like a year to accumulate enough points for a $50 gift card and I was afraid that I would be out all of the points and all of the money.  They tell him that they sent me an email with instructions. After re-checking my inbox and junk box, I state that I indeed did not receive any e-mail from them. They tell me that I have to mail my gift card back in so they can reload it with money and they will mail it back. Ben told them how disgusted I have been with their service thus far and how slow they have been and that I have dresses on hold. I kinda wanted to yell at them to overnight the card back to me.

Well, Ben and I went back to Express tonight as they were only going to hold the dresses until close tonight. We bought my dream dress and left the other one.

With any luck, I will have my gift card in time for 2011's holiday sales.