Visa’s new marketing idea: a gift card that can be used in any store, not one in particular. It seems to be ideal gift to give when one’s uncertain about gift-giving situations.
I recently have had a quite unusual experience with Visa Gift Cards. Hopefully, my story will prevent others from making a similar mistake.
This spring while planning on traveling overseas I was looking for an option to avoid the 3% VISA foreign transaction fee and additional foreign ATM charges with the use of my Visa Debit Card. I went to my bank teller at US Bank. I thought she would know a solution to getting around this inconvenience and I was recommended to purchase a Visa Gift Card. This way I wouldn’t be charged the 3% and would be able to use it anywhere that takes Visa. Sure, I’ve heard of traveler’s cheques, but this sounded like an exciting modern alternative.
I purchased a Visa Gift Card and I even recommended my travel-companion Daniel Long, Senior at Billings Senior High School, to also purchase a card. With our shiny new Visa Gift Cards in our wallets, we departed Billings feeling quite financially secure and satisfied we wouldn’t be paying any foreign transaction charges.
During our travels we found ourselves purchasing from merchants that didn’t take Visa Gift Cards and only took cash payments. Luckily, we had previously exchanged a small amount currency and I had brought my debit card. Daniel did not bring an alternative method of getting cash and ended up giving me his Visa Gift Card in exchange for cash I withdrew from my bank account using my debit card.
We were able to get by in our travels without using our Visa Gift Cards, therefore missing out on saving the 3% charge and ATM fee.
This didn’t bother me, but the complications arose when we returned. Having two Visa Gift Cards with more money than I would spend at Visa merchants I needed to find a way to put the money from the card back in to my bank account. It seemed like a reasonable desire.
I figured I would call Visa and ask them if this would be possible. Reading the back of the card searching for a customer service number I noticed, “U.S. Bank will deduct from your balance an administrative fee of $2.50 per month beginning with the seventh month from the month of card purchase or as allowed by law.” What!
I called them. No, you cannot transfer your balance into your bank account, sorry.
I became determined to find a solution. Ideas were running through my mind, and I tried almost all of them. Buy an item and return it for cash. No, this wouldn’t work because upon returning an item, the item amount is just transferred back onto your card’s balance. Buy a cashier’s check from the bank with the Visa Gift Card and then cash it. No, cashier’s checks cannot be purchased with Visa Gift Cards. Sell the card on E-bay. No, there are hundreds of other people with Visa Gift Cards on E-bay selling them for less than their balance.
I was becoming desperate, but found a solution. I activated my card on the third-party website and created a Pay-pal account attached to my Visa Gift Card. This way I sent my remaining Visa Gift Card balance to my friend Jon Porta’s, senior at Senior High School, Pay-Pal account, being charged 2.9% and he sent the funds back to my Pay-Pal account, being charged another 2.9%. I could then successfully transfer the remaining Visa Gift Card balance into my bank account. Although after all of that, I was left with bitter feelings towards Visa.
That’s my story and I hope others don’t make the same mistake I have.
In other cases many people are enjoying their Visa Gift Cards. Josh Green, sophomore at Billings Senior High School, currently has a Visa Gift Card and is enjoying it, but he recognizes the card’s flaws.
Josh enjoys not having to carry a wad of cash around with him and instead can have a slick card in his wallet.
“It’s nice, but if you lose it, you’re screwed, because your don’t need an ID to use it,” Josh said.
One of the problems with Visa Gift Cards Josh has noticed is the remaining balance people have on their cards becomes so small, it’s difficult to spend.
“You have to keep track of your balance and in the end you always have a little money left over that’s difficult to spend,” said Josh.
It’s easy to imagine all the Visa Gift Cards that have had remaining balances, were unspent or lost. All of this extra money is returned to Visa as pure profit.
Many people receive Visa Gift Cards as gifts, just as Josh had. I argue that the card is a poor supplement to cash and entail unnecessary complications. With the financial world moved to plastic, there are some situations when using cash is more logical.
