PayGarden

Pay Garden! To be blunt about it, transferring money online sucks!

No matter where you are sending it to or receiving it, it is a pain in the ass to shuffle around money, and it shouldn’t have to be. After all, in the digital age, data travels at the speed of light. Even on the relatively free internet, the legislators still lay down a dick ton of regulations that make transactions a headache.

And that’s the case for standard money transfers. God forbid you to be involved in a legal but ‘unsavory’ form of economic activity like gambling, escorting, payday lending, or porn. That’s practically license for banks to cut off doing business with you altogether.

Hell, there are examples where people have had their entire bank accounts seized – not frozen or suspended – but just taken by the government for being in the wrong industry. If you want a disturbing example, just look up the effects of Operation: Choke Point.

Keeping with this, there are several additional problems in dealing with digital money stored on a gift card. In fact, there is an estimated $40 billion worth of cash sitting on gift cards that go unused in a given year. And that estimate comes back from 2013; the number now could be as high as $45 billion or more.

Fortunately, Pay Garden does have a potential solution to this problem that might help you.

Here Is What This Site’s Services Are

In short, this service allows you to use major gift cards anywhere online. This means that you can use your gift cards for physical goods, digital things, subscriptions, etc. You can even transfer money from the card into a different account.

The setup will take some time, about two hours or so, but I guess that is faster than setting up a fully functional PayPal account.

As a member, you’ll get support options, access to a dashboard to track your transfers, and you won’t have to worry about chargeback fees. Of course, all of your transactions are private and completely secure.

There Are A Series Of Exceptions To This Program

As seemingly versatile as this product is, there are some severe setbacks depending on how you use this service.

International transfers can be tricky

Technically, you can use this service for anything so long as it’s within the connected cards, but there is a catch. Since Pay Garden is a US-based company, there will be some issues in using this service if you live in Canada or Australia.

According to their FAQ, Pay Garden says that compatibility for international brands on the same network may or may not work “is on a brand-by-brand, country-by-country basis.” The only means to be sure if your gift card will be accepted is to type the number into your payment form. Then you’ll find if your card works or not.

Prepaid cards aren’t accepted

Sadly, yes, that is true. For some bizarre reason, any pre-paid cards are not accepted by Pay Garden, no matter the carrier. This even includes gift cards from Target and Best Buy, and similar establishments. As a general rule, when it comes to physical cards, if it has Visa or Mastercard written on it, they probably won’t accept it.

Only certain e-cards and store-brand gift cards are accepted.

Certain marketplace cards may not be compatible

While e-gift cards are supposedly in-network, you will run into a series of frustrating roadblocks regarding specific e-cards from particular websites. For instance, sites like giftcardgranny.com, cardpool.com, raise.com, and plasticjungle.com are not accepted.

Seriously, what is the point if so many digital money providers are not connected to this service?

Combining cards doesn’t work

This is yet another restraint that doesn’t make any sense to me. Apparently, at any one time, the system is compatible with a single gift card per purchase.

Your support options are limited

There is a decent amount of information provided on the site’s FAQ. However, there are not too many ways to get ahold of this company. The only real way to do so is by emailing them at [email protected].

They Report Being Apart Of A Growing Network

Despite the constraints you are under, Pay Garden does report to be connected to dozens of online and storefront businesses. When it comes to the former, some of their partners include streaming services like Twitch, phone service providers like Boom Mobile, and even massive video game titles like Warframe. As far as big-box business goes, some of the brands they network with include PetSmart, Home Depot, Costco, and TJ Maxx.

There Are A Few Decent Reviews From Partners

Among the many companies connected with Pay Garden’s model, a couple of them have had representatives come forward and stated their positive opinions. To get you the exact quotes, this is what they had to say;

“We are enjoying our cooperation with Paygarden and their always-ready-to-help team. Innovative approach and excellent service level create a unique, promising opportunity to attract new payers and satisfy our business needs.”

–Tanya Yurevich, Payment Manager at Wargaming.net

One representative of another accredited company that has proudly partnered with Pay Garden is Gaia Interactive, and he had this to say;

“Very happy with the flexibility of the API and the responsive technical support. It was easy to configure different campaigns, and our team couldn’t be happier with the boost in revenue this holiday season.”

–Derek Liu, CTO at Gaia Interactive

These are the only direct quotes I can find when it comes to this website. But, some professional reviewers have their take on this platform as well.

The Interwebs Is Split On This Service

It never hurts to check out what other review boards are saying about a particular service. As Pay Garden has been around since 2013, I figured there would be at least a few. Sure enough, there were only a few worth looking at but quite illuminating.

Scam Adviser

Rating: 4.5/5

Trust score: 86%, probably safe.

Okay, let’s get to the most critical basic question: is this is a scam? Short answer, no; long answer, no, but there are a few things to be aware of. This site and its services have an established track record online, completely secure, and other positive reviews.

According to Alexa, it does get a fair amount of traffic, even though it is not optimized for search engines. It is a little strange to Scam Adviser that the site owner’s name is not a matter of public record, and to that, I say whatever.

The one thing that did stick out to me is that you all should be aware that the site actively prohibits credit card chargebacks.

Trust Mama

Rating: 4/5

Trust percentage: 66%

Despite what the name suggests, this review site is not some random blog written by a homemaker who comes up with a flippant opinion based on a handful of observations. Instead, this platform did a pretty thorough analysis that looks at SSL certification, domain registration and expiration dates, and related data.

With this data, they also average out reviews – Pay Garden only has two – to develop a trust score and weighed rating. Looking at this data, it seems like Trust Mama trusts this business.

BBB

Rating: 1.5/5

Accredited: no

Perhaps the golden standard for establishing the credibility of any company, whether it is a brick-and-mortar establishment, an online venture, or whatever. Despite the positive reviews elsewhere on the net, the consensus here is overwhelmingly negative.

One review is overwhelmingly positive, while another reported a good experience followed by some weird fuckery. Everyone else seems convinced that this is a scam. To be fair, most of those reviews are so short it might just be because of user error.

I Have Got My Own Opinion Of This Business

When I look at this website, I don’t see a scam at all, but I see a potential list of issues. It is nice to see a specialty service that deals with monetary transfers between financial institutions and gift cards. Certainly, there are a series of benefits for using this service, and they might be extraordinarily beneficial in certain circumstances.

That said, I find that all of the many restraints placed on users can be a pain. This is certainly true when it comes to users outside of the United States or using pre-paid cards. To me, that kind of defeats the potential purpose of this resource.

Sure, not all of that is Pay Garden’s fault, given the complexities of the financial services sector. On the other hand, it might just be easier to connect your gift card to your PayPal account and spend it or transfer the money that way.