Found Money Fund Files #5: That $50 Shell Gas Gift Card at the Intersection of Procrastination and Money

I’m a procrastinator. Like, the hipster procrastinator—I’ve been a procrastinator since 1983 when my mom had to drive 60 minutes round trip to Moskatels in Sunnymead to buy foam balls for my 3rd grade solar system model due tomorrow.

A major symptom of procrastination is perfectionism. If I can’t cut the Cool Whip lid just right to fit around the foam ball Saturn, I’ll just take the F, thanks. (Or the U for Unsatisfactory, the old name for an elementary school F.) My parents made me turn it in. The project deserved at best a C (the dreaded S for Satisfactory to an E for Excellent student—to a perfectionist, an S is even worse than a U). I got an S+, effectively reinforcing the fact that procrastination pays if you’re willing to take a lower grade than you know you’re capable of getting.

35 years later I’m still procrastinating because if I can’t do something right, I won’t do it at all.

Wreck at the Intersection of Procrastination and Money Stalls Budgets

At the intersection of Procrastination and Money are late fees, expired birthday checks, grocery receipts two days too old to redeem Ibotta rebates on crap I’d never buy if I wasn’t getting it for free, a shirt I paid $12 for that’s only worth $2.38 at Kohl’s because I can’t find my receipt, and a $50 Shell gas card I paid for that didn’t work at the pump.

Keep reading about how I got my 50 bucks back from a gift card 9 months after it was stolen:

Back in March I bought a $50 Shell gas gift card at Fry’s grocery store. (Want to know why? Read Best Frugal Practices: How We Use Gift Cards to Meet the Minimum Spend for Credit Card Bonus Offers.) I’m sure the cashier gave me the little activation receipt; she always does. A couple months later I finally remembered to use the Shell card at the pump. I’d left the Shell card in its paper display sleeve so it would be easy to find in my glove box, where I had stashed it so I’d remember to use it. I forgot. Of course I forgot.

My husband said the gift card was declined. I said he was doing it wrong. He said he tried it twice at the pump, went inside the gas station and the clerk ran it twice, and he did all that before he told me it didn’t work because he knew I’d say he was doing it wrong.

We paid for the gas with a credit card, I put the defective Shell gas card back in the glove box so I’d remember to deal with it, and we drove to California. I forgot to deal with it. Of course I forgot.

When we were getting ready to take The Greatest Family Roadtrip in July, I remembered the $50 Shell gift card, and decided to deal with it in case there were any Shell gas stations back east where we could spend the card. To reconcile the gas budget months earlier, I transferred $50 out of the vacation fund, so I decided that if I could get that $50 gift card reissued or refunded, we could count it as Found Money for our vacation.

Found Money Files: How I got my $50 stolen gift card back thanks to data mining.

I don’t know if you worry about this like I do, but every item you purchase with a store rewards card is tracked—the purpose of a rewards card is data mining. We sign up to get the sale prices and rewards, but it’s the grocery and drug stores that get free demographic and purchasing habit information.

Surprisingly, Fry’s lets me see all that info on its website. I can go into the Purchases tab and see every single item I bought on each grocery store visit. And it’s really clear—Nabisco Oreo Cookies, $2.29, not the gobbledygook like you see on Walmart’s receipts. (What the heck is Uni Sgt W and why did I pay $4.97 for it?)

This was July, and I shop at Fry’s about once a week. I went down, down, down into the receipt rabbit hole until I finally found it: $50 Shell gift card, bought March 7.

And then my Ebates app beeped with a new 10% hotel rebate offer and I got distracted hunting for a cheaper hotel room in New York City and I forgot about dealing with the Shell gift card. Of course I forgot.

I am the Queen of Procrastination but I still got paid.

Two days before Christmas, I had umpteen things to do, including writing two articles promised to two lovely, patient, and I’m sure non-procrastinating people. This is what a true procrastinator does: decides now is the time to deal with that Shell gas gift card situation. I recognize that I am silly.

At this point I’ve lost my little 3×5 recipe card for meatballs on which I’d scrawled the date of the transaction so I had to go back into my Fry’s account to find the date and now it’s been nine months since I bought the Shell gift card so the receipt rabbit hole is much deeper.

I knew Fry’s wouldn’t be able to help me because on their end the transaction looked fine; I just needed the transaction date. I had to call the number on the Shell gift card, which involved running upstairs to find my husband’s reading glasses that I don’t need so I could read the tiny phone number. I was quite proud that I only carried two loads of laundry downstairs, started the washing machine to agitate the detergent, forgot to load it, ran an empty washer all the way through, and let the dog out before I found the glasses again where I had left them on the dryer and called that Shell gift card customer service number.

I only had to repeat the numbers on the gift card four times to the not-US-based customer service representative before she understood me. That’s something. She told me that the card had been used up in three transactions the day after I bought the card. I still don’t understand how that’s possible since the card was still in its display sleeve months right before I tried to use it, but thieves are tricky. She asked me to email a photo of the gift card with my story and the case number.

I’m extremely proud that I immediately took a photo of the gift card and emailed it with my story and the case number…right after I restarted the washer, actually filled it this time, told the kids to eat cereal for breakfast because I had to do “one more thing” and only did six more things before I sent that email. But it got sent.

Really, I didn’t expect to get anything out of this. I expected that the Shell gift card people would reply with a statement that did not answer my concern, because that’s what usually happens when I have to deal with non-US-based customer service. But it was a load off my mind, at least I tried, and as always, I had spent way more time worrying about dealing with the problem than the time it took to actually deal with the problem.

Found Money Total: $50

Surprise! A few days later I got an email stating that Shell gift card was sorry for the trouble and they mailed a new $50 Shell gift card to my address. I’ll start the new year with a fat $50 in my Found Money Fund. It’s money that never should have made it to my Found Money Fund—really it was part of my gas budget—but since I could have had a baby in the time it took me to re-collect my money, I’m counting this as Found Money.

Now that I’ve been reminded just how easy it is to deal with something right away instead of having it hang over my head unresolved, have I sent those two articles to those two patient people? Nope. I wrote this instead. Of course I did.

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