I really should stop assuming none of the new dotted vanilla VGCs are tamper-proof. So what happened? Well, I had recently bought a lot of VGC at my local grocery store and opened up the packages and piled them up on my desk waiting to be activated at https://balance.mastercardgiftcard.com. It’s because that stupid ass web site will block you after 5 card activations. And because I’ve never had an activation issue in the past, I just assumed I’ll slowly activate them all and use them as needed. Fast forward to last night while I was trying to activate a card, I got an error. When I called up the 800 number, the IVR said there was an activation issue. I then spoke to a CSR rep who told me I needed the receipt. Sure, that’s fine. However, the issue is that the numbers on the receipt are hard to match to the card because the cards look like this on the back:
The first 420 is pretty generic to all of them, so I have to go through all my VGC receipts and find one that has a 31 in the middle of the 14 digits. The issue here is that most likely this card was tampered with and I won’t find a 31 in all of my receipts, because the one that actually did activate is in the hands of the scammer. Thus I had to dig up 2 weeks of old USED VGC and match those numbers up to all the receipts and then the one that I didn’t have is likely THE RECEIPT that Incomm needs. Well the other issue is that I that I’ve thrown away cards that are older than 2 weeks. I THINK I’ve narrowed it down to 1 of 2 receipts. I’m not sure which one it is of course.
So yeah, the lesson learned is a) make sure the numbers on the card match the receipt when you purchase the cards and b) keep the receipts next to the cards until you both activate and use the cards before tossing them.
didn’t play them for awhile.
They need activation now? I remember they were auto activated after the purchase before.
i take picture of the package backside , before opening the package.
I do this before leaving the store. It’s not only because of tampered cards, but one time I rep mixed up 2 cards during activation and gave me the wrong one. I went back and was able to swap for the right one. (Sounds fishy but it was unintentional)
Feel for you. Not that it helps now, from the start I’ve always kept the receipt with the cards until the entire batch was liquidated and the source credit card payment made, and even then I attach the receipt to the card statement.
But most importantly I activate every card the day of purchase, using 2 different types of browsers you can do 4 cards on each and cycle back without getting blocked.
Still even more important, how many cards are you buying? At a grocery store Vanilla cards can be bought for $500 each so what is a bunch? I do $3000 and for risk management they are all immediately registered upon arrival home. Waiting wow, too risky.