Update: TPM has sent out an email to sellers with an explanation for the recent issues.
Dear Seller,
Unfortunately, Mike is very sick and has had to be hospitalized. We are working on things and hope to have an update for you very soon. Sorry in advance for any issues this may have caused, and please be patient with us.
The Plastic Merchant is a private gift card buying and selling platform. If you’re a gift card re-seller you have probably heard of them or done business with them in the past. There seems to be some major issues with The Plastic Merchant (TPM) now. There’s almost no activity on the site for over a month and check are bouncing. There’s reports of this from Miles to Memories and Vinh on Twitter. Some large four figure checks have bounced. Even a $5 check would not clear at this time, so there’s np money at all in their bank account.
Guru’s Wrap-Up
This is terrible news for those who do business in bulk with TPM. They’ve had issues in the past, but I don’t think it lasted this long. I have never dealt with them, but they’re pretty popular, so I’m sure there’s readers who have sold them gift cards. One thing that you can do for now is to definitely not submit any new sale orders. Hopefully there’s some fixable issues and checks start clearing, but this doesn’t look good at all.
Let me know if you were affected or if you have any other info that could help other readers.
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Thanks for writing about this. I’ve noticed that the majority of the blogs have avoided the issue altogether which i don’t understand. Do they get paid from TPM? Is like 2 or 3 blogs only that have called them out.
I’m out of $3K and i really don’t expect to see that money anytime soon. It’s a shame that they promote tpm and then keep quiet once they cheat people out of their money.
I’m just venting but thanks again.
I trust people aren’t still sitting around hoping Mike will come back soon and fix everything.
One guy goes to hospital and their whole operation shuts down? They’re lying.
Danny, thanks for catching this for us. Have stopped submitting anything further to TPM. (extended reservations) I also just noticed that one “purchase order” from 3 days ago was never processed….. (home depot cards) …… which presents a conundrum….. (and a possible way out) Might burn a bridge, but as I see it, TPM is the one that burned the bridge by not having contingency plans. (and I’m not buying the “illness” of the top chap) What else can I do? Wait for them to declare bankruptcy (now a real possibility)? Or pull em down?
This is terrible, terrible news….. on all counts. THanks for passing it along, such as it is….. So stunning that they didn’t have a back-up plan…. Molly’s message vaguely referencing “issues” is even more disconcerting, making a bad situation even worse. I was going to file about 1k of best buy gc’s tonight…. but now think I’ll go for the week extension and see how this pans out…..
Concur that TPM has had the absolute worst track record at decent, two-way communications. (Yet at least TPM is in English — unlike that miserable “giftcardwiki” site where they’re too arrogant to even bother providing guidance on how to do anything…… wish I knew Chinese or I’d give them a serious try…..)
Not the first time this happened and unlikely to be the last. Their response is insufficient, still no warning to people not to cash checks even though the account doesn’t have $5 in it. Mike has the worst communication skills of any “business” person I have ever run across.
True, they could have sent out a warning just like they sent out a response once everyone started writing about it. Hopefully it gets resolved soon.
their reasoning sounds bs. I don’t wish for the guy to be sick but I really hope it’s true that he’s sick and they’re not just lying to us.
Finally received a message that Mike the owner is hospitalized. That being said, this didn’t just happen and is likely to kill the operation once and for all
Yup, I updated the article with the TPM response. Thx