How do i pull cash of gift cards: follow up 09/18/2013

[Sandy D]

I use them all of the time is why. Why buy 25.00 cards? Totally almost useless. It takes 65.00 or more to fill up my tank with gas and 25.00 dont cut it.

You can do so much with 100 cards that you cannot with 25 cards.

I can use several 100 cards for gas, going to Disney, Universal, groceries.


** Tips of the day **

You can use up to 8 gift cards per transaction at Wal Mart when you purchase items such as groceries, household items, lawn items, pool items etc.

So if you have 8 cards laying around cash them out by using 8 of them at wal mart. Tell the clerk what is on the card and they will deduct from your bill down to what is left.

Easy way to cash out your cards. I dont leave money on the cards, they are all used in some manner down to zero.

DO NOT use gift cards on Square for low dollar amounts. Square does notice they are gift cards and will shut your account down if they see you running a bunch of cards through Square.

I use Square all of the time. Even on some of my higher dollar craigslist sales. I tell the potential buyer I can accept a credit card if they have it on hand, swipe it using Square and done.

[bombora]

Guys with almost all prepaid/gifts you CAN add a pin then you can get cash back at the store, use at the ATM, etc (visa vanilla included). Most of the time its a process with instructions on their site, just read their FAQs. As an example I just did with visa vanilla you enter your zip code online and when you purchase just select debit and enter a 4 digit pin. It now accepts this # and its set as your pin from now on until you're done with the card.

[GOGETER10]

Do you have to send in documentation??

[rsot]

Great tip about Walmart - some other stores will allow this too.

For Square, they will shut you down if you do a lot of gift cc cashouts - you need to look at VARYING the activity - gift cards and REAL cc's...you can get some nice gift points on your real cc ...if you can handle the debt/paying off

[MM78]

Actually I called Square and they told me it was ok, I've done around 50 Vanilla's and around 30 of other cards.

[Omgoozle]

Okay since sandy spilled her guts I'll spill mine too:

I've found that there are three different types of register checkout processes that handle cards. One type will "sense" that it's a giftcard and "sense" the amount left on the card and withdraw that amount from the card then leave the remaining balance to be paid.

An interesting thing about these kinds of registers is that if you don't use the entire balance of the card, it will tell you your remaining balance on the receipt. I've always been curious how it did that.

A good example of a retailer whom I know this works with is Staples. I also use them to buy shipping supplies. Convenient!!

Another good example of this is Whole Foods. I have gone into Whole Foods and used up to 15 gift cards in one transaction to buy a Whole Foods gift card without telling the cashier how much money was on each card. It went well the first time, but the second time I got some shifty looks from the cashiers and decided I could use some more envelopes instead.


The second kind of card-reader thingie is the kind used at restaurants or anywhere that prints a TIP line on your receipt. These machines will only allow a transaction to go through if you have a certain % of the bill available on the card, because the TIP is processed after you write it in and after the card is scanned. I have been in different restaurants enough times to experiment, and I've found that some machines require 30-50% of the total bill to be part of your balance or it will deny the gift card, while others require 100%. Example: If you try to pay a $10 bill and the machine needs an extra 50% for tip to process your bill, you need to have a minimum of $15 on the card.

The third kind of machine is the kind that outright denies your card if it does not have enough funds to cover the balance of the bill. These are the cards where you need to tell the cashier exactly how much to charge to the card, or the transaction will be denied. Annoying!

Hope this helps,
Goozle

[Sandy D]

Originally Posted by rsot

Great tip about Walmart - some other stores will allow this too.

For Square, they will shut you down if you do a lot of gift cc cashouts - you need to look at VARYING the activity - gift cards and REAL cc's...you can get some nice gift points on your real cc ...if you can handle the debt/paying off

LOL -- Your last sentence does not make sense at all.

So if you use your real credit card to add funds to Square then you would be actually getting the funds into your square account.

Then you would use those funds to pay off your credit card before the 28 days so you wont get any interest charges.

You must not use Square to not understand that your would be funding it therefore there would be ZERO DEBT as you posted if you turned around and paid your cc bill with those same funds.

[GreenBean]

So everything would not be ALL SQUARE doing math a la rsot?

[rsot]

Originally Posted by Sandy D

LOL -- Your last sentence does not make sense at all.

So if you use your real credit card to add funds to Square then you would be actually getting the funds into your square account.

Then you would use those funds to pay off your credit card before the 28 days so you wont get any interest charges.

You must not use Square to not understand that your would be funding it therefore there would be ZERO DEBT as you posted if you turned around and paid your cc bill with those same funds.

You dont quite see that WHEN you charge your cc via Square, there is 2.9% + 0.30 charge (around that) for the purchase.

So...you would get less funds into your bank account, right? Lose a bit of money on the transaction - you see it?

Yes, it is NOT a Zero debt affair - you will lose a bit.

[Sandy D]

Originally Posted by rsot

You dont quite see that WHEN you charge your cc via Square, there is 2.9% + 0.30 charge (around that) for the purchase.

So...you would get less funds into your bank account, right? Lose a bit of money on the transaction - you see it?

Yes, it is NOT a Zero debt affair - you will lose a bit.

You used the word DEBT, if you can handle the DEBT.

There is no DEBT rsot.

You did not mention the word fees, you instead stated if you can handle the debt. There would be no debt at all.

No one here would be stupid enough to not know about the fees and allow the 28 day cycle to go past without paying it off with the funds that you can actually get back.

You meant by mistake I assume there would be some debt involved and that is totally incorrect.

[rsot]

Oh - well that is an interpretation issue then - I consider any amount on a credit card to be DEBT since a person owes money...true it's a minimal loss but it's not Zero debt affair - the fees do cause a bit of loss so when you swipe your card for $10...you would get 10 - 2.9% - 30 cents in your bank accounts...it's a debt on the cc

No worries though - think we are all clear.

As for the statement Sandy D:

No one here would be stupid enough to not know about the fees and allow the 28 day cycle to go past without paying it off with the funds that you can actually get back.

....you know, I would argue with that "no one" part hah...from seeing what is posted made me laugh a bit

(Have to save this text in case it gets taken down hah....)

And again with the judgement:

"You must not use Square to not understand..." - why go there? I dont make judgements on ppl in general not using such and such...I use Square a lot in truth. Anyhow, discussion got cleared up.

[MM78]

Are we still talking about withdrawing funds from Gift Cards? lol

[Sandy D]

Originally Posted by MM78

Are we still talking about withdrawing funds from Gift Cards? lol

Yes we are. And we both explained how to do it without any problems.

[glacier922]

Originally Posted by Sandy D

Since Square knows it is a gift card from the number they will not allow you to use many.

It is for using a debit or credit card and not gift cards.

They will let you run a few in here and there as long as you use debit and credit cards.

If someone is planning on using nothing but gift cards thinking they will get away with it they will shut the account down.

There is a thread here somewhere that I think they used 11 gift cards with no other cards and Square closed their account.

I also have knowledge of it from reading in a money and financial forum I post on that others have had multiple closings of their Square accounts using gift cards they received for Christmas and had to call and get their accounts back.

Never used square before, but can we use stealth methods to create another square account?

[rsot]

It`s rough with stealth methods since - am fairly certain (people can correct me if wrong) but in the US, they must require some sort of ID with SSN.

I speak of experience in Canada - they do a credit check...verified with DOB and address and credit questions.

[unkown5454]

Originally Posted by glacier922

Never used square before, but can we use stealth methods to create another square account?

This can't exist

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by glacier922

Never used square before, but can we use stealth methods to create another square account?

No. Not at all.

Not even for further talk.

Real ID is needed.

[Sandy D]

Originally Posted by glacier922

Never used square before, but can we use stealth methods to create another square account?

No need to do so really.

[yotano211]

All I know that is, if you do use a lot of gift cards you will get shut down. I used Square in the past to cash out of my gift cards. I was doing 2-5 per day for over a week. The following week I got an email saying that I was banned for using too many gift cards.

I now use my gift cards to buy stuff, gas, shipping supplies. And since the gift cards that I use, I can change the name and billing info. I can change the info to other names. My last round of gift cards I used to pay my phone bill. My bill is paid up for 4 months.

[rsot]

I hear you yotano - I solved this issue (knock on wood) by doing charges of my real cc's between gift cards

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by rsot

I hear you yotano - I solved this issue (knock on wood) by doing charges of my real cc's between gift cards

Sounds time consuming.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by GreenBean™

Sounds time consuming.

It can be, sure but - like all stealth methods - takes efforts to avoid getting into problems. If this pattern works for me, I stick with it. Between every few gift cards, I run a small real cc charge