She did it by shopping with a discounted gift card she bought online at CardCash.com.
"I was definitely skeptical, because it was 20% off the face value of the card that I bought," Heebner explains. "But when you're on CardCash.com, you can see that it's completely secure and has a 45-day money-back guarantee. So I tried it and it worked great and I actually went back and bought another one later."
According to Liz Luke, a vice-president for CardCash.com, about 10% of the $90 billion dollars of gift cards that are sold every year don't get spent.
"So what we do is, we offer people cash for their cards," Luke explains. "Basically, they go on our website, CardCash.com and it's very self-explanatory. There's a button for buying, there's a button for selling, there's a button if you want to trade."
If you sell a gift card to CardCash.com, you'll only be paid about 70% to 90% of the face value. But that's still more than what you'd get if you left the card in a drawer and never used it all.
But the big savings come when you buy a card. The average discount is 11% to 13% off the face value. We found a Gymboree card worth more than $223 for $183 -- that's about 18% off.
The card comes in the mail in a couple of days and you can really maximize your savings if you then use that discounted card to buy items that are on sale at the store.
Heebner's become a big fan of the site. "I'd say go for it. You know, it seems too good to be true, but it definitely works."Here are links for CardCash.com and other similar discounted gift card sites:
CardCash.com
GiftCardRescue.com
PlasticJungle.com
