Strange behavior of newly bought Pay Power Cards
This afternoon I bought 4 Pay Power cards at Winn Dixie today - 2 on one card and 1 each on 2 other cards.
This is the 3rd time I bought the Pay Power cards which in our area charges the $3.95 fee.
A few hours later I was getting $2997 MOs at WM, using 2 cards and my BofA AS card. The $500 each transaction went thru, MOs started printing. But, it only printed a $1000 and a $997, then automatically closed the transaction with a $1000.70 Change Due...
Cashier called the CSM who happened to "know" me and had seen stranger things happened before (a full transaction completely voided). She told the cashier just did another $1000 MO with Cash so they did not have to refund the $1000.70 in cash as the register just had a shift change and not enough money in it to do the refund.
Instead of doing the remaining 2 cards at WM, I decided to go to Publix even though the fee there is $500 for $0.89.
Before I went to Publix, I checked the remaining 2 cards balances - they were all good. I even re-set the PIN on one card. At Publix, the authorization failed, even though the cards apparently had full $500 balance on them. Cashier suggested to do a $400 and $400, then return to do $100 and $100, as she said sometimes that would work. The $400 still failed.
Upon returning home I checked the balances again - they were all good, and the only transactions on them were the loading at Winn Dixie.
The other 2 cards that WM voided the MO, have 0 balance now so WM's register for $1000.70 Change due is correct. (The $0.70 was taken from the BofA AS debit card which was the 3rd card swiped.)
I reset the PINs on both card and will try again tomorrow, as I suspect it is the communication error between the processing point and the BlackHawk side. Though I still could not understand why the first 2 cards went thru at WM, but when printing the MOs, WM machine would stop printing the 3rd MO, and abruptly closed the transaction with a refund.
Has anyone experienced "Dud" Pay Power cards that could not be used as Debit Card even with correct balances and PINs?