Gift Card Update - Please Read

Contributor: Wondermom Wondermom
Quote:
Originally posted by Ivy Wilde
I'm really, really glad that I already placed the "big" (less than $200) order that I'd been working towards. I used nine different gift cards to pay for it, though only one was from redeemed points.
me too! it wasn't crazy expensive, just $145 but still, I used my giftcards I had won and a coupon code.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Wondermom Wondermom
Quote:
Originally posted by ToyTimeTim
Rachel K, Jaimes and all the rest of the awesome staff, thank you for all your hard work! I know I speak for the majority of the community in saying you guys rock and always do your best to make this site the best there is.

I must say that ... more
made it to the end finally and I agree. I got a little scared but now I am calm and I am glad there is a solution in the works. As BBW said, these are just sex toys lol

I generated a giftcard from points last week so I could donate to the school supply fundraising, am I still able to send that in?
08/16/2011
Contributor: Ryuson Ryuson
This is the best customer service I've seen in a long time! I love how Eden listens to everyone's ideas!
Everything aside, I'm glad that I ordered a day ago or I would have been in trouble! I understand why it was in process for so long, now! I get $2.00 a day just for clicking around and contributing; I can't understand what more people can ask of this site!
08/16/2011
Contributor: Dawn (Lilac Distraction) Dawn (Lilac Distraction)
Quote:
Originally posted by Wondermom
I also agree with making the reviewer program harder to get into, mandatory mentoring perhaps? I also do not like the voting system being so open to applicants, there should absolutely be a limit
I agree with this a whole lot. I really think it should be a lot harder to become advanced. I really think that people are getting voted in without their reviews even being read. How many times is someone not voted in? Every time I go by the community corner, it's like whoever was up for an upgrade has been voted in, even if their reviews could have used a lot of work. The mentoring process helps out everyone.

But that's not really relevant here.
08/16/2011
Contributor: BBW Talks Toys BBW Talks Toys
Quote:
Originally posted by Dawn (Lilac Distraction)
I agree with this a whole lot. I really think it should be a lot harder to become advanced. I really think that people are getting voted in without their reviews even being read. How many times is someone not voted in? Every time I go by the ... more
These ideas have been discussed. The problems is: "How do you distinguish between people who deserves to be voted in and who doesn't? Who determines this? What qualifications do they have to make that determination?" Also, not everyone needs a mentor. And not everyone is in it for free stuff and not everyone does everything possible to earn as many gift cards as humanly possible.

But like you said, not relevant. Also, doesn't really do anything to stop spammers.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Linga Linga
Quote:
Originally posted by Ivy Wilde
I'm really, really glad that I already placed the "big" (less than $200) order that I'd been working towards. I used nine different gift cards to pay for it, though only one was from redeemed points.
I did that too but mine had a points one from me and one from my man (hehe I "borrowed" his points) and then I wake up to read this and can't help but feel like I did something wrong
08/16/2011
Contributor: Shellz31 Shellz31
Quote:
Originally posted by Rachel K
Hey, gang!

We wanted to give the community the heads up that a change has been implemented on our site. This change directly involves the gift cards.

So, most gift cards on our site are made with EdenPoints. It’s a great way to get ... more
Ok well this is going to stop a lot of us overseas buyers!
And I if I ever win another rumble the gc can go straight to someone else cause I'm NOT going to place an order with one gc that will maybe only just pay for the friggin' shipping!

I'm with Kindred - some time frame on the changes would be great so I could use the last of any gcs I'll be receiving from now on.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Shellz31 Shellz31
Quote:
Originally posted by Jaimes
Unfortunately, the 'more often than not phrase' is pretty accurate. Rachel and I processed 3 orders totaling somewhere over $5000 in gift card points just last week. We aren't at the end of an era, we're just moving into a smarter way ... more
Bloody hell - $5,000 in gift cards. That's insane. They obvisouly don't care about the future of Eden by abusing their generosity!

Maybe instead of only being able to use one GC per order cause it makes it damn hard for us overseas due to our shipping fees, plus others even in the US doing things hard:

Limit GC orders down to say $1,000 or $600 ... people can use dollars if they want larger orders, but limit the GC's total amount.


I for one use to do a GC once I got to a certain amount - just in case the conversion rate changed....lol.
08/16/2011
Contributor: ToyGurl ToyGurl
Quote:
Originally posted by Rachel K
Hey, gang!

We wanted to give the community the heads up that a change has been implemented on our site. This change directly involves the gift cards.

So, most gift cards on our site are made with EdenPoints. It’s a great way to get ... more
This kinda sucks considering I like to use my points made on eden with the actual gift cards I've earned from writing articles or the many, many I got at my bachelorette party... I don't think we should be punished for things other people are doing. One or two gift cards doesn't seem all that bad to me. If it is literally farming then those people should get booted off the site or get a pentalty. Not us.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Shellz31 Shellz31
Quote:
Originally posted by Jaimes
So just to give you guys a taste of what to expect, we will be doing away with converting points to gift cards. Points will be linked to the account that earned them, and then those points will be available to spend towards your order. As soon as ... more
That sounds like the best way to do it. But it still does put some overseas buyers out. I know for myself mum and I would combine our orders cause of the shipping costs. I know another Aussie member and partner were doing the same. It just made more sense for us to combine the shipping.
08/16/2011
Contributor: ToyGurl ToyGurl
Why can't there be a limit such as two or three gift cards per order? That would make it easy for your valued reviewers to use an EdenPoints gift card, any gift card that was given from EdenCafe, etc, and an actual Eden gift card. I don't think you guys should go as far as severely limiting our gift card usage.

I write a lot of articles for you guys and I believe I am a valued reviewer, just like many others. A lot of us rely on one or two gift cards at a time to cover shipping costs or to buy a few extra items to review. I think EF is going to see a huge decrease in reviews after this new rule kicks in. Especially for those of us, like myself, who use $5 of eden points at a time. Those of us who are not abusing the program.

I can tell you that I will be going from several reviews every two weeks to one or two reviews a month if this happens.

This really sucks.
08/16/2011
Contributor: ToyGurl ToyGurl
Quote:
Originally posted by Dawn (Lilac Distraction)
I agree with this a whole lot. I really think it should be a lot harder to become advanced. I really think that people are getting voted in without their reviews even being read. How many times is someone not voted in? Every time I go by the ... more
I think so as well. I have seen some people called "advanced" reviewers, yet when I look at their reviews there are typos everywhere. Things that don't make sense, such as battery information, storage information, etc. Almost like they never even used the product and are just faking reviews to get points.

I think EF could take away points for things like:

- Answering polls (it's one point, who cares)

- Making a search (still only one point)

- Voting on reviews

Even though the points from voting on a review would be taken away, there could still be points for actually taking the time to write a good comment on someone's review. That is actually work. Taking the time to write something useful.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Shellz31 Shellz31
There's another problem I have just thought about. As incentive for new students to advance/graduate in my class I give them a GC as a thankyou. Cause too many students do the dirty on mentors by advancing through the public voting way and that is simply NOT FAIR on mentors.

Now if I can't reward my students because the account that earned the points has to use them then perhaps then needs to be changes with the public voting!!!
Like the system won't allow ya to go through the public voting if you're a student.

Then again I think the public voting should be done away with cause how many people are that GRAND at writing straight off that they can't learn at least something from a mentor. And it's only two reviews for goodness sakes!
08/16/2011
Contributor: Kynky Kytty Kynky Kytty
Quote:
Originally posted by El-Jaro
Yeah, that's totally true!

I've seen some pretty bad abuses too.

To P'Gell and the rest of the community: Don't sweat this too much. The points program, from my point of view, is all icing on the cake. Reviewers still ... more
And who knows if those toys aren't going to be resold - I mean they were technically free for the farmers. Oh and as for me, I get about 10$ in points per month in average, and I can't imagine the level of farming it required for this. (Time is money, my friends.)

I completely agree that a measure was necessary for the time being. Nice catch, guys.
08/16/2011
Contributor: ToyGurl ToyGurl
Quote:
Originally posted by Kynky Kytty
And who knows if those toys aren't going to be resold - I mean they were technically free for the farmers. Oh and as for me, I get about 10$ in points per month in average, and I can't imagine the level of farming it required for this. (Time ... more
Well shouldn't point farmers be penalized and not the rest of us who are using our points correctly and our gift cards?
08/16/2011
Contributor: Kynky Kytty Kynky Kytty
Quote:
Originally posted by ToyGurl
Well shouldn't point farmers be penalized and not the rest of us who are using our points correctly and our gift cards?
Like they said, it's temporary, and Edenfantasys does not usually take forever about making decisions. I do not often get GC myself and most of my purchases are from my affiliate money, but there were a few times when I stacked a few GC to get a new expensive toy (my dear Siri for instance).

I know it can be frustrating, but I'd be surprised if that temporary measure lasts more than a month. But then, I'm not working here, and it's just an impression. EF wants to spoil the honest and valuable contributors, but you gotta admit that 5000$ of toy value going away in smoke must be pissing off a few people here.

If I can make a suggestion myself for now: there could be a Gift Card trade-in system. You send a ticket with your gift card codes and ask for a total. The older codes would be longer working and you'd get a single more valuable card. And the employees can have an idea of where those codes are from.
08/16/2011
Contributor: ToyGurl ToyGurl
Quote:
Originally posted by Kynky Kytty
Like they said, it's temporary, and Edenfantasys does not usually take forever about making decisions. I do not often get GC myself and most of my purchases are from my affiliate money, but there were a few times when I stacked a few GC to get a ... more
I am really thankful to JR, Jaimes, Rachel, and the rest of EF who is working on all of this. I respect the company and I have been buying for a long while here. I do think that people farming that many points is ridiculous and definitely unacceptable. I guess it's just upsetting me because my husband's birthday is in like two weeks and I promised him some expensive toys (at least they are expensive to me lol). I was planning on using 2 gift cards and my affiliate points to get them but I guess that is out of the question. Hopefully I can get the extra cash in time.

I think I've come across some of these farmers though. I've had a message or two asking to borrow a $20.00 gift card which I thought was really fishy. Like, why not sit on your ass, write some decent reviews and make your own gift card money? People have crazy ways of hacking the system these days.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Redboxbaby Redboxbaby
Quote:
Originally posted by P'Gell
OK. (pant pant pant)

Jeez, $5,000.00 orders from out of the country? Who is doing this? (OK, I KNOW you can't tell us, it's just a frustration question.)

I have seen a number of something fairly new. A new poster with mainly ... more
"I also think making the Advanced Reviewer Program a little more difficult to get into...would help a LOT!"

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Good Lord, there seems to be an entire screen of new reviewers each week. When I log in in the morning before work there are always one or two reviews up for advancement and by lunchtime they are already voted in.

I think it might help if you limited points to those who earn Advanced Reviewer status. I don't know I think it is silly to give points to everyone just for surfing your site and not putting anything into the community.
08/16/2011
Contributor: TameTemptress TameTemptress
The new changes sound great, I'm glad the one GC per order is only temporary though. Phew!

A relative and I combine orders and she sends me gift cards to cover her portion, that way we're sure to get enough of an order for free shipping and sometimes she or I end up with like, $2 left on a GC that would go to waste if we weren't able to use more than one.
08/16/2011
Contributor: ToyGurl ToyGurl
Quote:
Originally posted by Redboxbaby
"I also think making the Advanced Reviewer Program a little more difficult to get into...would help a LOT!"

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Good Lord, there seems to be an entire screen of new reviewers each week. When ... more
That is exactly the idea. People are sitting on their asses, clicking on buttons, adding things to their wish lists, adding friends, commenting things like "lol" or simply "nice review" and getting rewarded for it.

I think people, like the ones talking actively in this forum post, are fine. We post reviews regularly, we participate in live discussion, WE HELP THE COMMUNITY. But there's people just here to get the benefits of a free toy each month and practically rape the site of points for doing nothing.

Maybe there could be a limit of how many reviews someone has to do to be advanced. And I would put that up high... like maybe 20 or 30. Or maybe they have to be a mentor to be advanced reviewer.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Booktease Booktease
Quote:
Originally posted by ToyGurl
That is exactly the idea. People are sitting on their asses, clicking on buttons, adding things to their wish lists, adding friends, commenting things like "lol" or simply "nice review" and getting rewarded for it.

I think ... more
Oh, the 'nice review' thing over and over drives me nuts! At first, I thought people just really liked my reviews. Then I figured out what was really happening.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Dawn (Lilac Distraction) Dawn (Lilac Distraction)
Quote:
Originally posted by Booktease
Oh, the 'nice review' thing over and over drives me nuts! At first, I thought people just really liked my reviews. Then I figured out what was really happening.
Yes. I mean, at least say something that indicates that you read the review. Ugh.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Shellz31 Shellz31
So I have another suggestion for those of us overseas who have high shipping costs and have a loved one on Eden too who we use to combine orders with.

~ What if we had to contact a certain staff member who can give individuals a yes or no as to whether we can share points between the two people for an order. The staff member can look into the two Eden members to see how active they are to make sure there's no point farming going on. My mum is as active as possible on here, but doesn't feel that she can write proper reviews. I have offered to be her mentor to help teach her write - even outside of the mentor program, seen as how we live together, but she just doesn't feel comfortable or confident doing that. I'll keep working on her....hehehe. But she has never been great at writing.
I know everyone is going to say this will take up too much time and it's just easier to say to hell with the international buyers.

~ But another idea is to allow free shipping for overseas members if they spend a certain amount on an order - say $150 or $200.
Cause I have had 8 - 9 item orders and the shipping jumps up to $38 and it doesn't matter if those items are teeny or big - the shipping still jumps with every item you place in your cart.
08/16/2011
Contributor: One of Five One of Five
$5,000 is alot of money to lose.... I am glad EF is taking action to help try and prevent things like that from happening in the future

There's something I'm saving my points for anyway... so I don't mind waiting for a little while


I agree with the people wanting to convert several smaller GCs into one larger one. I also like the idea of limiting the number of Eden Points generated gift cards and letting the GCs that were given or rewarded be stacked up.

It's nice to see a community so involved and a great customer service who cares about their members to keep them updated.
08/16/2011
Contributor: DexterStratton DexterStratton
Well, the system is clearly being abused and that should certainly end, but for my own part, the only reason I even get points is so I can gift them to my sweetheart.
08/16/2011
Contributor: aliceinthehole aliceinthehole
Quote:
Originally posted by Rachel K
We're going 100mph, Kindred, no joke! Haha

Yeah, it's like Eddie Izzard says: "There's always a back door!"

We do believe it is multiple accounts, linked to multiple emails, in the midst of using multiple IP ... more
i sure hope you didnt actually FILL those orders. cheaters pumpkin eaters. dont deserve to reap the benefits of the garden of eden! smite them with painful childbirth!

08/16/2011
Contributor: Miss Jenn Miss Jenn
Quote:
Originally posted by Rachel K
We know it's an abrupt change, gang, but we are definitely listening to you as you post.

Reading you as you post? Okay, you know whaddamean!

There's always room for improvement, so keep your ideas coming!
I have to agree with the others. I blog, and when I do blog about Eden, I get a GC for that. Theres also several blogs that have giveaways for EF GC. And I don't want to win, and not be able to use them all.

I understand there is a problem with farming gift cards for $1400 worth of merch, but maybe place a limit as to how much you can spend using gift cards/points in a single transaction... Maybe $200? I do like the idea of inputting the gift card info into the points account, and just saying you want to pay for your purchase in points. This would be a great idea. I think it would be great if instead of turning in the points to get a gift card code, why not just have the system at check out say you have X amount of points, how many points do you want to use towards this purchase? And have it have a calculator like you have when we trade points for GC codes... Does that make sense??? God I hope so.



But about the $1400 order... If the points just appeared out of no where, and it seems like its been a sudden rush of increase in points, then maybe its been farmed. But if the person is a regular user, and regularly visits the site, and earned those points honestly, what would be so wrong with having a purchase that big? I mean, I get, $1400 is A LOT of stuff, but hey, if it was earned honestly, I don't see a problem.... But, hey. thats just me IF it was farmed/scammed the system, then its not fair to anyone.
08/16/2011
Contributor: sexyintexas sexyintexas
Quote:
Originally posted by aliceinthehole
i sure hope you didnt actually FILL those orders. cheaters pumpkin eaters. dont deserve to reap the benefits of the garden of eden! smite them with painful childbirth!

You make me giggle.....smite them with painful childbirth! Lolol! I agree that making it harder to become an advanced reviewer would help.
08/16/2011
Contributor: Shellz31 Shellz31
Quote:
Originally posted by Miss Jenn
I have to agree with the others. I blog, and when I do blog about Eden, I get a GC for that. Theres also several blogs that have giveaways for EF GC. And I don't want to win, and not be able to use them all.

I understand there is a ... more
The $200 in gc/points might great for those within the US, but some of us overseas save ours so we can place larger orders at times to make the shipping worth while. We don't have the priviledge of cheap or free shipping!
08/16/2011
Contributor: aliceinthehole aliceinthehole
Quote:
Originally posted by Jaimes
Unfortunately, the 'more often than not phrase' is pretty accurate. Rachel and I processed 3 orders totaling somewhere over $5000 in gift card points just last week. We aren't at the end of an era, we're just moving into a smarter way ... more
this is really shocking to me. that so many people are 'point farming.'

but are 3 orders (i'm guessing from 3 different folks?) a week really making the whole system being abused 'more often than not?' i dont know.

i get about $5 a day in points and have used as many as 3 gift cards in an order but have never saved over $20 with them. i'm very active in the community and having started writing a fair amount of reviews. i'm looking to start mentoring soon as my 5.6 rating goes up to 6.


for me this seems like getting in trouble for something i did not do. and it also makes me sad that other people are abusing EF's generosity. really i hope you guys come up with a way to root them out and ban them.

08/16/2011