Month: July 2014

Visa GCs issued by Bancorp Declined by Walmart MoneyCenter Express

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On June 29th 2014, I went to Walmart MoneyCenter Express (ATM) to reload Serve with the following four gift cards:

  • (1) $500 Visa GC issued by MetaBank, I bought at a grocery store
  • (2) $200 MasterCard GCs issued by U.S. Bank, I bought at Staples
  • (1) $100 Target Visa GC issued by Bancorp, I bought at Target.com

walmart declined target visa gcExcept for a Target Visa GC, the others were successful to reload Serve. I tried twice and also tried to reload another card (Walmart MoneyCard Preferred) with Target Visa GC, but all attempts failed. ATM seemed to recognize the card as a debit card and even prompted me to enter PIN. But, they declined the transaction in the end.

At first, I thought it was a temporary problem. It did happen to me before. A Visa GC had declined one day, but the same GC accepted on the other day. However, after I went home and searched about this on the internet, and I saw the websites here and there. It seems Walmart started being picky on types of debit card for reloading BlueBird/Serve/Walmart MoneyCard.

According to the websites, Vanilla Visa GC and OneVanilla Visa GC are no longer accepted at Walmart ATM. Both GCs are issued by Bankcorp, which also issues Target Visa GCs. Many people experienced the same problem, so probably, these GCs are no longer available for Walmart Swipe Reload.

When I go to Walmart next time, I will give it another try.

Target Visa GC & ShopDiscover w/free shipping on $50+

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free s&h on 50+I received an ad from Target. It seems that Target has new shipping policy, “free shipping on all orders of $50+.” I checked if this is eligible on the purchase of gift cards. I added $100 Target Visa Gift Card to a cart and chose credit card for the payment method. I made sure that it was free shipping. (Just a week ago, I did the same thing, and they charged $1.95 for shipping.)

Now that shipping cost is free, there is nothing for me to stop purchasing Target Visa GC. I used “Discover it” card, and most importantly I entered Target.com through ShopDiscover. I received thanks-for-your-order email, and there is no cancellation email (please read the posts: Target Visa Gift Card and ShopDiscover 1&2). The next day, I received an email from ShopDiscover. The card arrived a week later.

target visa gc w free s&h

It proved that Target kept cancelling my orders because I used Target GCs as a payment method. I don’t know why they accepted the first order (I used Target GCs for the purchase of Target Visa GC.) Anyway, I won’t do that again. It is not comfortable to receive an email of cancellation right after a check-out.

In this transaction:

  • I paid a purchase fee (-$6.00)
  • I earned 5% cash back from ShopDiscover (+$5.30)
  • I earned 1% cash back from Discover (+$1.06)
  • Total +$0.36 profit

This isn’t a lot, but I always redeem Discover’s reward for 20% discounted gift cards, so $6.36 will be worth $7.95 for me. I get $1.95 profit.

Target accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and PayPal. You can convert AmEx GCs into $100 Target Visa GCs for 70¢ per card. AmEx GCs have fewer features than Visa GCs. They don’t have PINs so you can’t get cash back at registers. Once you get Visa GCs, you can load BlueBird/Serve at Walmart and get cash back at registers depending on the stores. Visa GCs are easier to be converted into cash than AmEx GCs.

As I mentioned in the earlier posts, it is a great money maker when it is on 4th quarter of Discover’s promotion (rotating category: online shopping). And if ShopDiscover’s seasonal promotions give additional 5% cash back on purchases at Target.com, that would be so great. Because cash back from ShopDiscover is unlimited, while cash back from rotating categories are capped at $1500 of purchases. And if this happens in 4th quarter, you will get total 15% cash back!!! However, I’m not sure that the cash back rate of Target.com is raised up by 5% in the past. I have never paid attention to it. I will need to keep an eye on the cash back rate of Target.com.

Please note that it seems that Walmart kiosk no longer accepts Target Visa GCs for reloading BlueBird/Serve, read this post for the details.