Connecticut officials are looking into four complaints from residents who received gift cards from a New York firm called Simply Certificates, which had been selling them for several years.
Complaints were made to both the Consumer Protection Department and to the Attorney General’s office that restaurants and other businesses were no longer accepting the cards because the company has gone out of business.
The web sites claim to provide coupons in Connecticut, upstate New York, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. The site for Connecticut does not show any businesses that will accept the cards but it does list several in each of the other states.
Company officials have not returned my phone calls over the past three weeks and state officials say believe the company may have gone out of business.
For more information about a victim of Simply Certificates and on gift cards in general, please read my previous column.
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I issued Simply Certificates a check for $50.00 on 12/22/10. After reading that they were closing & that the bank accounts for Simply Certificates had been closed as well, I advised the person that I gave the certificates to to send them in for a refund.
Yesterday I checked my bank statement & saw the my check made out to Simply Certificates had been cashed!!! How can someone cash a check made out to a company that has since been closed???
Can anyone tell me how to get a refund on my gift certificates????
I too am stuck with 2 $50 certificates from simplycertificates… have not been able to get a straight answer from anyone.