Originally Posted by redtop43

Probably the best place to buy your GC's is a Simon Mall. There are quite a few in/near Boston, although you should check whether they sell gift cards. (Almost, but not 100%, of Simon Malls do.) They will sell $10K a day, the fees are reasonable ($3.95 per card, max $500), and they won't view your activity as "suspicious." You'll have to fill out a form and show your ID. You can only do $10K/day, it's against the rules to go to multiple sites on the same day to get more than $10K.

If you have a WM that will take them for MO's, I'd suggest doing that. Cash in the bank is way more secure than cards in a vault. However, if you do plan to keep the cards, make a log of the numbers and change the PIN's. However, I've processed well over $1 million in GC's and the only time I ever had a problem was when a friend I don't totally trust was in close proximity to the cards. (Cost me $500. I learned and am more careful.) Again, a bank will generally not consider depositing MO's as suspicious. Many banks will close your account if the MO activity is too high over too long a time, but the two accounts I've had closed were after way more than $50K. Of course, if you don't want to pay the MO fee (0.18%) you can keep the cards, but it'll be quite annoying to deal with 100 cards that have unknown amounts of money on them.