Mobile gift card provider Gyft has announced via an email to its customers that it no longer offers users the ability to purchase Walmart gift cards on its platform.
Gyft, which accepts bitcoin and provides 3% ‘Gyft points’ back to digital currency buyers, added the US retail giant to its network on 24th March to great fanfare, as Walmart was long one of the most requested retailers by Gyft users.
The company informed customers of the change in its offerings via a 14th April email.
Read the message:
“Due to circumstances beyond our control, we need to remove Walmart from our list of participating retailers, effective April 13, 2014. Rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to bring them back up as soon as possible.”
Gyft and its CEO Vinny Lingham have been outspoken about their support for bitcoin, with Lingham most recently penning a lengthy post on how bitcoin played a key role in the growth of the company.
The San Francisco-based company began accepting bitcoin in May 2013 through a partnership with BitPay.
More details
Though new buyers won’t be able to purchase Walmart gift cards, Gyft indicated that existing Walmart gift cards purchased on its platform can still be redeemed.
The company, long one of bitcoin’s most supportive companies in the wider tech ecosystem, stressed that bitcoin users who were dissatisfied with the decision should get in touch with Walmart regarding the matter.
Said the email message:
“If you are as disappointed as we are about this decision by Walmart, please email them at help@walmart.com and let them know how you feel about it.”
Gyft will continue talks with Walmart
Speaking to CoinDesk, Lingham indicated that Gyft would seek to learn more about the decision and to continue to speak to Walmart about relisting its gift cards. Still, Lingham wasn’t optimistic that the retailer’s policy would change.
Said Lingham:
“We will continue to talk to them, but it’s a giant organization… I can’t speak to their reasoning at this stage.”
As pointed out in the email, however, Gyft still provides bitcoin users access to a number of mainstream merchants.
Notably, this includes Minnesota-based retail giant Target, the third-largest in the US, which joined the Gyft network in November.
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