The other day, I bought $2K of gift cards at my local Kroger affiliate, and for the past couple of months, I’ve been double checking the activation receipts with the cards as I’m walking out of the door (in case there are problems.) Anyway, today, after the cashier typed in my driver’s license and pushed ENTER, an error screen came up on the screen saying to the effect of, “Card/PIN already activated.” The cashier thought it was my credit card that caused the error (I argued with him that it wasn’t my credit card since a) it wasn’t true and b) I didn’t want to show him my non-personalized AGC.) He tried to clear the message, but it needed a manager’s override. He then called the manager.
Quick aside – having a cashier call a manager is like being randomly called into the principal’s office in grade school – you never know why or what’s going to happen to you, and it’s usually more bad news than good news. Anyway, the assistant manager came up and seemed like he had done this before. He asked if the receipts had printed, and the cashier said NOPE. Then he put in his key and typed in his password. The receipts then printed out. Sure enough, one of the cards said, “DECLINE – CARD OR PIN ALREADY ACTIVATED.” He then found the card, scanned it for a refund, and then I swiped my SPG card. 😉 Lesson learned here folks – always carry your bank debit card in your wallet!
As I was walking out, I looked at the activation receipt again and compared it to the 3 remaining cards. The manager refunded THE WRONG CARD! I still had the inactivated card in my hand. I then walked back to him and showed him the receipt. He then wanted to refund the inactivated card in my hand and re-activate the one that he had already inactivated. If you’ve been in this game long enough, you know, activating, inactivating, and reactivating a gift card just sounds like a TERRIBLE IDEA. I then asked him, “No, can you just refund the card in my hand? I don’t want to try to re-activate the other one in case that card gives me errors.” He happily obliged and refunded me the true inactivated card. At the end of the day, I liquidated $2K of AGC, wound up with $1K of gift cards, and $1K sent to my SPG (this pains me the most.)
Lesson learned – ALWAYS, ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THE ACTIVATION SLIPS BEFORE LEAVING THE STORE. And even if they corrected one error, CHECK IT AGAIN ANYWAY. Lesson #2 learned – always carry your bank debit card!
Hey Vinh
I’m new to MS.
I bought a $500 USbank gift card from Kroger and tried to load my Serve acct at Walmart. After entering the pin # (I selected a pin # by calling the 800# on the card), the card was denied. I tested this card at bestbuy, and it too was denied after entering the pin #. But it worked when the cashier at bestbuy ran it as a credit card.
So am I missing something here?
Next time when I go to Walmart to load Serve with this giftcard, do I
A)tell them to run it as a credit card
or
B)tell them to run it as a debit, but when the pin# input screen comes up, I hit cancel?
Sorry but this was my 1st attempt at MS using a VGC.
Thank you.
You should check the balance online to make sure the card hasn’t been hacked yet. If the balance is correct and you are sure you are typing the correct PIN, I hear these cards are ‘dead for debit’ which means you can only unload it as a credit transaction, which means no Serve loads or WMT purchases. Use it like any other credit card. You can try B; if it doesn’t work, then default back to A.
Yeah the balance and pin# r correct. My friend successfully used VGCs from Staples (Metabank) to upload to Serve a month ago. So did Walmart ban all VGC as debit loads or just ones from US bank? If the latter, I haven’t heard any talk on the web, so it must be local/regional and not a national policy? Are Sunrise and metabank VGCs still working with Serve?
So if I can’t load Serve, what do I do with this thing other than purchases? Do you think it will work to buy a money order at Kroger?
Another thing, if VGCs are no dead for Serve loads, what will you guys be doing for MS? thanks
Try it at both WMT and Kroger. USB VGC aren’t dead to load Serve. Worse case, you move to Redbird to load Vanila VGC at Target.
Curious: how do you stay under the Kroger-imposed limit of $2000 per GC purchase when using an AGC? I usually just load the VGCs with $494 each, which leaves 20 cents on the ACG…which I usually just throw away (I always use my phone to take photos of all my GCs and receipts, etc, and store in Evernote in case I need to produce copies in the future).
I’m toying with loading the VGCs with $493, which would leave $4.20 on the AGC, which I could then load onto my Amazon GC account, and not “waste” any of the value of the AGC. But I’m not sure if the effort is worth capturing 20 cents.
I buy 500 x 3 + 475 = 1998.80. I then use the last $1.20 at self checkout buying bananas or whatnot since it autodrains and I don’t hold up the line.
why do you want to end with a total of 1998.80? I’m assuming you can’t buy that 4th VGC at $476.20?
You can, but $476.20 is harder to unload than $475. Imagine telling the WMT cashier you want to load $952.40 split 2 ways. That’s just asking for their brains to explode.
haha, got it.
I’m missing something. You bought the gift card with an AGC and then had it refunded to your SPG AmEx, right? I don’t see where the bank debit card came into play.
Some stores will refund to any card instead of the one you actually used (don’t abuse and definitely YMMV.) So imagine what would have happened if I had swiped my bank debit card instead.