Idea: Gift Card API Tester
The idea of a one-stop web site for checking the balance all of various different gift cards was appealing at first.
Often, when checking the balance of gift cards, companies will have implemented a reCAPTCHA mechanism, forcing consumers to spend 1 minute solving a puzzle, which can sometimes be difficult to solve due to ambiguity of the puzzle. Ideally, this new site would rid of any reCAPTCHA.
In addition, some companies make it difficult to locate the actual web page to check your balance. Sometimes, the actual balance checking page would be located behind two or more links.
That said, none of that really matter because what customer would want to trust some website with their gift card information? Maybe some. But not all of them.
Pivot to an API?
What if this was an API for gift card resellers to balance check their gift cards in bulk? That might work, but gift card resellers shouldn’t be checking the balance in case the card gets locked.