Community Chat

[catter70]

What a pain.  I was given a Walmart visa gift card awhile back and decided I better use it. I put in all the info they asked for  then was taken to a page to register it. For the password it said it had to be 6 to 10 characters. I did six, nope, didn't work. Tried again, no. Then tried 8 a couple of times, nope no workee. Finally, 10 was the magic #. Why the heck don't they just say it needed 10 characters. Of course, all you get is an automated system, so no one can actually help you if needed. Hopefully, it will now work when I go to use it.

[Lucky Charm]

Maybe the 6 and 8 character passwords you used were already taken?

Or maybe they didn't think they were *strong* enough to be used safely?

Just guessing!

[catter70]

@Lucky Charm ,I don't know, I used random letter,s upper and lower case, numbers and characters. And 3 different passwords. Third time was the charm. At least done with it..

[Trailrun23]

I don't like the Visa giftcards because they have a fee when you buy them. I will be giving a lot of giftcards this year, but no Visa ones. 

[Venezia]

Not only do the Visa "giftcards" have a fee, but they also deduct monthly fees after 12 months.

These are not traditional giftcards, which are generally protected by a state's consumer laws (funds cannot expire; fees can't be levied).  They're prepaid cards and that's a whole different thing, as I found out the hard way.

I had $70 in these and hadn't gotten around to using them.  When I did (to get things at Home Depot for a project), I found I only had $42.  All the rest had been eaten up by monthly fees.

I got the company to reissue them and was told they were "new" cards.  Well, guess what?  The only thing new was the plastic cards.  The fees carried on and when I went back to use them a couple months later, I only had $12!  I was told "tough".

I warned my sister-in-law, as she was in the habit of buying these in bulk to give as Christmas or birthday gifts.  She immediately checked hers and found one of the $50 cards had a zero balance.

Never, ever again.  The big beneficiary of these is the bank that operates this system.  The monthly "fee" is hidden in tiny print about 10 pages into the leaflet they issue.