Cashstars Reviews 

I got a gift card for my friend in March, she was coming to USA from Brazil but had to cancel her trip due to her health so she ended up coming in August, I gave her the card cause she loved Cinnabon. When she went to use it came up as en error, to make a long story short, I had to make at least 8 phone calls and emails to finally get my money back. They had to send me a check which took 1 month to get to me. The card kept coming up as invalid. After all my aggravation and time and embarrassment with my friend they sent me the exact amount w no apology, NEVER AGAIN

I am sharing my experience to inform and illustrate how important it is to BE INFORMED. I am trying to INFORM.
I imagine if this has happened to me, it likely has happened to others, as well. In fact, further online research has revealed this, and other types of unexplained and 'deviant' activities, have given rise to numerous complaints from a boatload of other people. While the amount in question is not all that 'significant', the principle of it even happening is the true issue. For many others the amount 'could/might' be significant and this type of hidden charge/activity needs to be quelled.

Here's what happened. On November 28, 2023 I decided to purchase an "egift card online" from Sephora for the very first time in the amount of $100.00. The same day, I receive an email from them (and I have saved each and every email as evidence) entitled Sephora Email Acknowledgement of ecard purchase). Nowhere on this email is there mention of 'any' additional charges other than the $100.00 charge for the actual gift card. It even goes on to state that the 'shipping method' is FREE Canada Post.
Nowhere on any of these emails was it ever made known to me that this would be charged against my credit card as a CASH ADVANCE without my knowledge, authorization or consent which caused ME to incur additional charges of $5.00 and then another charge for 'interest' of $0.67 because, this was considered a cash advance by my credit card company.
This was an arbitrary decision on CashStar's part to do this without me ever knowing anything about this. Of further interest is that when I speak to employees at either Sephora OR CashStar, they repeatedly tell me that this has to do with charges from my credit card company. Are they serious? Of course this has to do with my credit card company and their charges BUT the reason these charges are in place at all is BECAUSE of the manner in which the charges were put through on the credit card.....CashStar put them through as CASH ADVANCES.....without my permission, knowledge or consent. In truth, this seems highly 'fraudulent' to me. Let's see what others think as well.
Clearly, this is the first and last time I will be dealing with Sephora. Certainly this will be the last time I, or anyone I know in my sphere of influence, will purchase gift cards given the headaches, hassles and devious underhanded treatment that results.
I thought and was prepared to pay the $100 for the e-gift card I ordered off of the Sephora website with no mention of any other or additional charges ANYWHERE!!! So, why is this being done? Why is CashStar putting through these charges as 'cash advances' rather than the usual and normal way all companies do when making a purchasing using a credit card?