Originally Posted by
FlyingBoat
Supervisor got back to me today and told me the card is now active. It loaded fine. They really didn't have an excuse. They say it is due to sometimes the systems not communicating correctly.
Leaves me concerned that they could deny a card and leave me hanging for a long time before finding out. What if the employee slips me the wrong card and pockets it for their friend. Sounds like it doesn't matter, even if I try to load it right there in the store and it doesn't work, the store cannot do anything about it. Takes Incomm two weeks to investigate. What if they come back and say nothing they can do because the card on my receipt was activated etc.
In this case the card # on the receipt didn't match the card and the store manager just shrugged their shoulders and said its a third party product and nothing they can do. I don't think it would matter one bit if I pointed that out to them at the time of purchase or half an hour later returning to the store.
These are the risks we accept as part of playing the game. As has been said many times before, if you can't afford to have your $$$ tied up for a while, you should reconsider whether you should be playing the game.
Don't expect much from the store you buy them at - they're always going to shrug and wash their hands of it, you'll always have to deal with the company that issues the cards.
You can help reduce your risk by using some common sense. Watch the cashier carefully - make sure they add the correct value to your card (check the receipt), make sure they hand you the card that's activated and not a different one (be extra careful if getting more than a single card), try and get a sense if they appear to know what they're doing or are just clueless (my "bad" VR was simply the result of a new cashier who didn't know how to load it properly). Above all, save your receipt in case you need it (my advice is to clip each receipt to each card so you know which goes with which -especially helpful if you have them stacked up like cordwood). And try not to let a long time elapse between the card loading in the store and you unloading it online.
If you take care of all the above, I think the chances of you being stuck without your $$$ for an extended period are reduced to nearly zero. You may be in limbo for a few days, but all reports seem to indicate that Incomm is a far cry from the Paypals and other SOB companies when they hold your money.
Incomm is a big company (explore their website and you'll see, it's not some small, fly-by-night operation) and although they may screw up once in a while (examples include the missing-digits VRs in their own neighborhood), they should resolve any honest glitches that you encounter to your satisfaction, given a few days. That may be a few days more than you would like, but I don't recall hearing from anybody who really has gotten hosed by them (yet).
Glad to hear your issue was resolved.