KWR: Visa gift cards [vent!]

Oh, I didn't take it as "blaming" the waiter. It is true that grocery cashiers are probably more used to people splitting payments though.

It sounds like those cards just have issues with transactions that could also include a tip, regardless of the amount of the purchase or that's on the card. It would be nice if they'd say that somewhere on the card/card's packaging rather than act like you can basically use them exactly the same as a visa card.

Samantha, as do I. I was just responded to Glenda asking who blamed the waiter. For the record, I don't disagree with you but think it may also be the store/restaurant policy of whether they let you split up payments into more than one "lump" amount.

All you have to do to figure out the balance is call the number on the back of the card and it will tell you.

We got a bunch of them for our wedding last year, we both hate them. The Mastercards ones are the worst. They take money off the card as soon as you activate it, our $100 gift cards became $95 by the time we got to use it. As others have said I would rather receive cash then one of those gift cards.

In California, there is a law that gift cards are not allowed to lose value for non use. So, if its a $50 gift card, it will be a $50 gift card until you use it. I won't buy them from any company that charges an activation fee. Crazy that they can get away with that.

Does anyone know if you haven't activated the card yet if it will show a $0 balance? We got a $100 Visa card for a gift and we've tried to use it. The paperwork says nothing about activating it...so we haven't...but if I call the number it says the card has a $0 balance?

This is why I just put all money from Visa's onto my paypal account.

I only his my above comment because it's early and I didn't realize someone else had already said what I was going to about the tipping thing.

I knew about the balance issue cause I used to work at Wal-mart for many years and had to tell people about that happening all the time. I always keep track of my gift card balances for anything anyway, so to me it's not really a big inconvenience.

Oh shoot..I have a $50 Nike gift card i've been carrying around for years. Prob worth nothing now? WTF.

Yes. We found what KT found at restaurants. They can be tricky.