Variable load gift cards to be pulled by Office Depot 2.4.2013
Feb 2, 2013, 10:52 am
#16
Community Director Emerita
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,755
Thanks to the OP for the heads up. I headed off to OD once I read this.
My local OD still has them but will pull them this weekend. I had a chat with the manager about it. He said that the reason is fraud. Someone will steal a credit card, use it to buy one of these cards that cannot be tracked, then throw away the stolen card. This particular OD has not had problems, but San Diego stores have. This OD does require showing your drivers license and the transaction must be approved by a manager.
We talked about the small businesses who buy the cards who will be disappointed to have them pulled. There are a number of law firms and medical offices near this OD who routinely buy them. They are great for employee gifts. Also, I can imagine using them instead of petty cash. For me, I can hand one to someone to use for gas and food, instead of having to line up a company credit card. It's an easy way to cap our exposure.
My local OD still has them but will pull them this weekend. I had a chat with the manager about it. He said that the reason is fraud. Someone will steal a credit card, use it to buy one of these cards that cannot be tracked, then throw away the stolen card. This particular OD has not had problems, but San Diego stores have. This OD does require showing your drivers license and the transaction must be approved by a manager.
We talked about the small businesses who buy the cards who will be disappointed to have them pulled. There are a number of law firms and medical offices near this OD who routinely buy them. They are great for employee gifts. Also, I can imagine using them instead of petty cash. For me, I can hand one to someone to use for gas and food, instead of having to line up a company credit card. It's an easy way to cap our exposure.
Feb 2, 2013, 10:58 am
#17
Join Date: May 2003
Location: CA
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold, HHonors Diamond
Posts: 2,879
I was at an OD here in Orange County the other day and it looked like most of the $500 reloads had been pulled. Normally they have tons of different types but Thurs they only had one type available. It was on the lowest set of pegs so it could have been missed by whomever was pulling them.
Feb 2, 2013, 1:08 pm
#24
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Bay Area, CA
Programs: AA Plat, UA Gold, AS MVP Gold, HH Diamond, SPG Gold, Club Carlson Gold, US
Posts: 956
Just went to a OD and the manager was like: I am glad we are getting rid of them. I am like when? He's like, I will pull them off the shelf today.
Feb 2, 2013, 1:28 pm
#25
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: LAX
Programs: UA Silver, AA, WN, DL
Posts: 4,091
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All good things come to an end... not really surprised and I didn't get in on the Sapphire/Ink game but it is too bad they can't just do a better job @ checking the ID to minimize the fraudulent purchases. Unless it is just a convenient cover story.
All good things come to an end... not really surprised and I didn't get in on the Sapphire/Ink game but it is too bad they can't just do a better job @ checking the ID to minimize the fraudulent purchases. Unless it is just a convenient cover story.
Feb 2, 2013, 2:21 pm
#28
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: LAS
Programs: DL PM, UA PS, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 4,904
Wirelessly posted (BB Curve: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/533.16)
All good things come to an end... not really surprised and I didn't get in on the Sapphire/Ink game but it is too bad they can't just do a better job @ checking the ID to minimize the fraudulent purchases. Unless it is just a convenient cover story.
All good things come to an end... not really surprised and I didn't get in on the Sapphire/Ink game but it is too bad they can't just do a better job @ checking the ID to minimize the fraudulent purchases. Unless it is just a convenient cover story.
Feb 2, 2013, 2:40 pm
#29
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Dallas, TX
Posts: 447
Did not have any problem this morning in one of the ODs here (There are 45 in DFW), but it could be happening. Thanks to OP for the heads up 
but this might also trigger the rush. I thought I was done for this statement cycle, but I will be going for another GC run soon 
but this might also trigger the rush. I thought I was done for this statement cycle, but I will be going for another GC run soon
Feb 2, 2013, 2:43 pm
#30
formerly known as Frugal Travel Guy
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Greenville, SC
Programs: UA Gold, HH Gold, SPG Gold, Marriott Silver, Hyatt Platinum
Posts: 1,925