Starbucks limited edition metal gift cards resold on eBay for thousands

This year’s Starbucks limited-edition metal gift cards sold out in mere seconds, leaving a lot of devotees feeling frustrated.

For the second year in a row A portion of the 1,000 cards were sold to the My Starbucks Rewards Gold-level customers who were given VIP access to the site, allowing them to purchase cards one hour before they were on sale to the general public.

According to USA Today, what’s really causing disappointment was that online retailer Gilt accidentally put the Starbucks cards for sale one day before the publicized date and began selling them on December 5.

NBC News reported that Gilt Group claims that 500 cards were sold to the general public at 12 p.m. on December 6. Four hundred were made available for the VIP customers one hour prior, and only 100 were sold when the link accidentally went live a day before the sale.

“I’m not speculating on what we could have done differently,” Starbucks spokeswoman Linda Mills said to USA Today.

She explained Starbucks was obligated to honor those premature sales.

“It was unfortunate that the link went up early.”

Gilt Group claims a technical issue caused the link to go live after a “sale preview” page had a snafu.

One eBay seller has listed a stainless metal card at a “Buy It Now” price of $4,500. The card was produced in last year’s batch and is marked No. 19.

In 2012, Starbucks created 5,000 stainless steel gift cards.

This year, Starbucks decided to make the cards even more exclusive, producing only 1,000 of the rose-colored cards. More than 11,000 people are reportedly on the waiting list for this year’s limited stock.

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