CARMEL MOUNTAIN ROAD (KGTV) — Local restaurant owners say Synergy abruptly cut off its gift card program a day before the company's own deadline, leaving businesses scrambling to handle hundreds of frustrated customer calls.
Synergy, which sells gift cards at Costco that can be used at more than 100 restaurants in San Diego County, declared bankruptcy and told customers they had until January 31 to spend their remaining balances. However, the company discontinued the program on January 30 at 12:30 p.m.
"Unfortunately when it stopped at 12:30 we could no longer process them," said Maroun Bsaibes, owner of Greek Corner Cafe.
The early shutdown created chaos for participating restaurants. Bsaibes said his business received more than 500 phone calls over three days from confused customers trying to use their gift cards.
"We got an avalanche of phone calls over the last two days in excess of 500 phone calls," Bsaibes said.
The restaurant owner questioned Synergy's communication strategy.
"Why did you tell us you're good through the 31st and then an hour and a half into a busy business day you just cut everybody off?" Bsaibes said.
In a new notice to gift card holders, Synergy said they discontinued the program immediately after experiencing "a tremendous surge in redemption rates."
The sudden stoppage forced restaurants to dedicate extra staff to handle the influx of customer inquiries. Bsaibes said he had to assign one employee and himself exclusively to answering phones for three days straight.
"Enough to where I dedicated one single person and myself to just answering phone calls over the last 3 days. An excess of 500 calls when we normally process about 30 a day is not easy," Bsaibes said.
ABC 10 News reached out to Synergy about its early discontinuation of the gift card program but has not received a response.
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