Originally Posted by
cbn42
jasonvr, thanks for this report, it is most helpful.
When you called to register, did you have to give your name, SSN or any other personal information? If not, this seems to be scalable, and may be worthwhile even without the J4U offer.
Originally Posted by
fidbrat
How did you drain it? MOs are hard with MCs. Was it ATM or something else? Do you happen to know if it supports Bill pay to ccs?
Call in was totally automated and didn't require ANY personal information. Literally I only had to enter the card number, expiration date, and the original load amount and from there I was able to set a PIN and decline receiving a personalized card. At that point I drained to BB. It is theoretically scalable since there is no identifying information and the fee is actually lower than a normal GC. The only thing would be ensuring that the CSR I talked to was actually correct about when the monthly fee is charged. I didn't wait around to find out since I drained the same day.
And interestingly (and I should have posted this earlier), it drained without any of the normal MC issues. I swiped at a register and it asked for a PIN. No having to hit cancel or anything like that. Just swipe, PIN, done. Didn't try it for an MO though. I didn't look at any features of the card since I was just interested in draining as soon as possible. I would imagine that features like BP would require a full registration of the card.