Elfster

Seemed to work OK for the adult gift exchange, until it sent out a 2nd set of drawn names for no reason. Never did get child accounts and wish lists to work for their own exchange. Declared Bah Humbug! After 3 weeks of effort. Help pages are way too general. I do half my job on the internet with a wide variety of government web sites all set up differently and have NEVER had so much trouble getting set up. Am curious if this works much better if only used for social wishlists? May try that next time. Cool in theory but VERY hard to use.

Customer service is pretty one sided. I was constantly being harassed by a few exchanges I joined. These people even came out onto public social media, and into my personal email. It was reported to elfster time and time again, but their response was instead of taking care of the harassers, to deactivate my account. All my gifts were sent and received by my gifters with proof, and even the maker of the exchange saying so.
Definitely only do this with friends, and don't expect help if you choose to enter in with strangers. Learned the hard way and was scammed multiple times. Shame.

You have a great website elfster! I love it and changed me, but it removed my stuff! I had a bunch of stuff on my wishlist and it all disappeared? It may be an issue through the website, if so they need to fix it soon. Plus, they aren't against gender roles. The mens section was filled of stuff i didn't like. It may just be me but PLEASE fix your website..

If I have to be as honest as possible this is a really good website. They have put together a really good way to have a secret santa christmas and to get ideas anonymously from your secret santa. The site was a really big help. My problem with the site is the customer service. I had a problem with one of the customer service people. Her name is Shannon Wilk. I have also seen the name helper elf and powder elf used for her. The problem was all my fault. I had recently had a cousin pass away unexpectadly and it had been affecting my mood. Obviously Shannon did not know this but it put me in a sour mood. I exchanged emails with her about something that I admit I was wrong about. That was my fault. This Idiot copies and pastes our conversations and Emails them to others in our group. Now I admit I was wrong, but what kind of high school crap is putting our private conversation out there for others to see. TERRIBLE customer service skills. I admit I should have just let it go, but I have never seen a customer service rep that would try to high school one up someone. Overall the site is good but look out if you have a question for the customer service department. They are like wolves that havent eaten and are salivating at the mouth for someone to cross their path. Overall Good job with the site Mr. Imburg!

Our group of friends have been using Elfster for over 5 years now doing a Secret Santa. Its a great place to post your gift lists and make sure we don't get duplicates. Great online chat for any help you need.

Great idea for the holidays especially for those who live far from one another. There is even an option to make a wish list and you can secretly follow people as well. I even see what left from a holiday wish list to buy birthday presents some time. I was also able to add wish lists for my children and everyone can still see them even though they don't participate in the exchange. Their customer service "helper elf" is awesome too. They walked me through changing someone's email. Lovely website and experience using elfster!

I organized a gift exchange for 150 people. There were a few kinks with the website. Some people didn't receive notifications of secret messages and quite a few times I got "bad gateway" loads. However, with this issues all the customer service elves have been extremely helpful. I wish it was a bit more user friendly, though. Many of my people had issues figuring out how to use the wish list and find their recipient. I also wish it had a questionnaire feature. This was a major issue for my exchange. We had 24 questions I needed post within Elfster and it was very hard to enter them into the system.

My family lives in multiple provinces. I was able to invite them all by facebook and email where they could sign up if they wanted to join in. You set the draw date and the site doe the rest! You can even post items on a wish list for the person who picked your name (including sites like amazon). I was even able to add people after the draw date. Their live customer service helped me two days in a row promptly and were very courteous.

Short stop was patient and courteous and hung in there with me until we reached resolution... i wish more reps were like him... he needs to be cloned... it did take a while but the situation was complex... he asked the right questions to get to s solution. I hive him 10 stars

I went on to set up our annual (25 years) gift exchange to find the site had been changed/absorbed by Elfster. My history was not there, many of my participants were missing? I was near tears. OK, I cried. I clicked on the elf and explained what had happened and Tricia and the head Elf were able to restore most of my information so the name exchange could go on tomorrow, Thanksgiving, as it has for 25 years. Thank you so much Elfster. This is what the season is about, helping others, family and traditions.