4 ms·

Is this where I bitch about those "cash" gift Visa and Mastercards? (The ones that are essentially a prepaid credit card with a fixed balance.) I've received

Is this where I bitch about those "cash" gift Visa and Mastercards? (The ones that are essentially a prepaid credit card with a fixed balance.) I've received a couple of them and they're so bizarre to me. First of all, they apparently cost $3.95, which is a 15.8% fee on a $25 card. (You would think Visa and Mastercard would be so happy to have more cards out there causing 3% transaction fees to happen that they'd give the cards away at face value). Then they're actually less practical than cash. You have to spend exactly the card balance to use them effectively. So if I swipe it at Starbucks a few times until it's down to $1.49, the next transaction will simply be declined! I'd have to ask the barista ahead of time to split the transaction and charge exactly $1.49 to the card (so I have to mentally track the balance or call Visa/MC every time I use it). I'm guessing it's more likely that people reach the point where the card is declined and then throw it away, with Visa/MC pocketing the remains. If you want to use it online, you have to go to the Visa/MC web site and register it (provide your personal details) so that the card is associated with billing details. Lovely side effect: they get your personal contact information to spam you with. For the love of all that is rational, please don't give me these cards, I'd much rather have $28.95 cash than $25 + extra hassles. The best use of these cards I could come up with is converting them to a gift card at a particular store you actually like. Store gift cards have correct overflow semantics - the full balance of the card will be used and the register will ask you to come up with the difference.

kapilkale 15y ago
Amen! There are a lot of niche use cases for them which most people don't see. For example, businesses use them to pay contractors when they owe more than a certain amount in order to avoid tax liability / paperwork. We didn't pull much data on them, but I think you can buy them at a discount as well.
- dhyasama 15y ago
  Hey Kapil, This is a tangent, but who designed your site? It's gorgeous.
  - kapilkale 15y ago
    Thanks for the compliment. Mike Kus designed it, though things like this content piece we did ourselves.
jonknee 15y ago
They have interesting uses though, because they are effectively a credit card that you don't need a valid billing address for. Allows for fairly anonymous transactions.
- crazygringo 15y ago
  Only in person, where you can use cash anyways. Online they don't work, unless you get one of the few which allow you to fill in a real SSN matched to a real address, etc. -- at least in the US. If I recall correctly, it's due to a section of the Patriot Act. And apparently they actually verify the SSN+name now. I'm not aware of any prepaid credit cards that allow anonymous online purchases now in 2011, in the US.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    You can set a billing address online or with a phone call and use it online. I did that a few times this year, in the US. (This was to get MLB.tv at an alternate out-of-market billing address.)
ww520 15y ago
The way to play the cash giftcard game is to take advantage of the cashback of the paying card. For example, Discover had a promotion on CyberMonday that paid $100 if I spent at least $1000 on that day. I didn't have anything pending to buy on that particular day, so I bought an $1000 Amex giftcard paid with the Discover card, pocketing the $100 cashback and had the $1000 giftcard to use in daily usage.

kapilkale 15y ago

Amen! There are a lot of niche use cases for them which most people don't see. For example, businesses use them to pay contractors when they owe more than a certain amount in order to avoid tax liability / paperwork. We didn't pull much data on them, but I think you can buy them at a discount as well.

dhyasama 15y ago
Hey Kapil, This is a tangent, but who designed your site? It's gorgeous.
- kapilkale 15y ago
  Thanks for the compliment. Mike Kus designed it, though things like this content piece we did ourselves.

jonknee 15y ago

They have interesting uses though, because they are effectively a credit card that you don't need a valid billing address for. Allows for fairly anonymous transactions.

crazygringo 15y ago
Only in person, where you can use cash anyways. Online they don't work, unless you get one of the few which allow you to fill in a real SSN matched to a real address, etc. -- at least in the US. If I recall correctly, it's due to a section of the Patriot Act. And apparently they actually verify the SSN+name now. I'm not aware of any prepaid credit cards that allow anonymous online purchases now in 2011, in the US.
- jonknee 15y ago
  You can set a billing address online or with a phone call and use it online. I did that a few times this year, in the US. (This was to get MLB.tv at an alternate out-of-market billing address.)

ww520 15y ago

The way to play the cash giftcard game is to take advantage of the cashback of the paying card. For example, Discover had a promotion on CyberMonday that paid $100 if I spent at least $1000 on that day. I didn't have anything pending to buy on that particular day, so I bought an $1000 Amex giftcard paid with the Discover card, pocketing the $100 cashback and had the $1000 giftcard to use in daily usage.