I think you are taking things out of context. The relatively few people like FT'ers buying gift cards in $500 increments and VR cards is a drop in the bucket for all these stores.
Funny you mention this. I highly doubt this is a "drop in the bucket", even moreso at CVS compared to OD. At OD at least they sell things that are over a couple hundred bucks like tablets and laptops and stuff; but after bluebird took off and everyone started clearing out beans, I think some managers payed attention when stores were posting huge revenue increases. My theory is that once bob in office depot accounting saw that some stores had huge boosts in sales, they narrowed it down to VRs, realized that they were losing money due to CC transaction fees, and shut it down. Sure, they may have negotiated lower rates with CC companies, but why would they shut something down if they're making money?
At CVS I feel like this will be amplified; while rx drugs can be hundreds of dollars, they do distinguish between pharmacy versus retail sales. And I'm pretty sure CVS hasn't started to sell cameras and ipads and things over $200. So once managers or DMs start to see that they're clearing out VRs and have a 10k+ increase in monthly store revenue, they'll start paying more attention...and we will have another tragedy of the commons.
edit: i feel like so much of this thread has devolved into squabbling over beans and bluebird customer service, so i will try and add some actual content.
Has anyone tried sending checks/using billpay to a brokerage account, and then cashing out that way? so like BB billpay to brokerage, then ach from brokerage to regular bank acct? Seems slightly convoluted but i'd rather do that than try and find free ATMs and whatnot.