Another day on the CVS VRS Tour
 

My three stops at CVS today:

1. 30+ cards available - 1000 max, refused AGC
2. 6 cards available - Up to 5000, but cash only ("we just called corporate")
3. No cards.

Thank goodness I no longer let this get to me.

You are forgetting about the $7.90 in fees. So you are leaving $8.90 on the table. As I said before, don't waste the FULL value of a VR card. Just buy one card for $503.95 and then hand them a second credit card for another VR card. No scan required. I don't mind my DL being scanned and I never buy more than $5K in a month. After all, you cannot transfer more than $5K per month per individual. Why tie up more money that you have to finance out of your own pocket even if you can afford to?

Fees do not count toward $1k limit before DL scan..

Yes, but a $1K purchase can trigger a fraud alert and tie up the cash register for 10 minutes. Chase seems to do this a lot. Amex does not.

I'm brutally honest, but that can come across as rude when read online.

Your 6 VR trick would not work 99% of the time. Any cashier would scan your DL after your first $1k purchase even if you paid cash. Alternating CCs may not even work since some stores require you to buy everything in one transaction.

Even if it did work, it would be highly unlikely any of us would be able to replicate it.

If you wish to keep buying VRs under $1k, please do so. Everyone has different comfort levels ^

Never experienced or heard of that before. You present them with only one VR and ring it up and then tell them you now want to buy another one with a different card. What would you do if you worked at CVS? I would ring up a second sale. It's the register that tells them to do the scan. I don't believe they can decide to scan your DL on their own although they might ask to SEE your DL.

By the way, your response to MarcusBWI was not at all rude. Some people may misinterpret your words or may be more sensitive than the average guy or gal.

Says the guy who has called two different people "foolish" in the last three pages of this thread alone?

I'm not trying to start anything (obviously I'm pretty new here!), but it seems like there's a way to help each other without resorting to insults.

Having said that, hitman1420, sorry I misinterpreted your comments. I'll keep an open mind in the future.

I'm sure you have read that different cities, nay, different CVS's have different rules, all at the whim of the cashier/manager on duty. Even the same CVS can have different rules. One CVS I go to will not allow purchases of VR's with different CC. Only one CC purchase is allowed. Doesn't matter what corporate policies are and arguing isn't going to get you anywhere.

Also, as we who are here longer tell newbies, only do what you are comfortable with, only spend what you can float. No reason to change that mantra.

What happened to your original claim, is this just your latest?

I used to do the multiple transaction thing all the time. I personally don't like making huge transactions as I feel they are more likely to raise red flags. Instead I would walk up with a few cards and put one per card for each issuer.

Now, my store has instituted a policy where they are "not allowed" to split these transactions, and the cashiers claim they will "get in trouble" if they do. I assume that there were people actively trying to avoid the DL scan. So now if I walk to the register with a few cards they ALL need to be on one transaction. I've had multiple cashiers tell me the same thing on multiple visits. This means that I need to make multiple trips if I want to put spend on two different cards (I haven't tried turning around and going immediately back through the same line again).

Another store that I go to much less often recently told me the exact opposite - that they are "not allowed" to ring up more than one VR in a single transaction. Of course I then said sure, go ahead (the guy check with his "manager" who was right behind him talking on the phone) - but on the second transaction got "tender not allowed" or whatever it was when I tried to use the same card back to back. It wasn't a fraud alert, either, so go figure.

My only point is that it is nearly impossible to generalize what a particular store's policy might be. I've seen both sides of the spectrum and everywhere in between. People may very well structure their transactions based on the policies of their particular store.

Also, to the contention that it would be totally absurd to go to several stores buying one at a time (I don't think this was from DCBob)- I could easily in one afternoon take the dog for a nice walk and hit at least 4 different stores. I also can walk past at least two stores on the way home. It all depends on geography and routine whether such a policy is absurd or not. To me, it is far more absurd for the person that lives 30 minutes or more from the nearest CVS to drive so far (even if they buy $5k at a time) to buy VRs than it is for the person with a CVS on their normal route to stop in once per day. Again, very difficult to generalize across all situations.

Perhaps you misunderstood me or I could have explained myself better. I do not engage in name calling, only pointing out that it is foolish to leave money on the table, not that the PERSON is a foolish person. All of us have engaged in foolish behavior occasionally. That doesn't mean the PERSON is foolish. And if I thought someone was, I would not tell them in a public forum like this. It's my advice to you as a newbie never to take offense about a person on FT. Restrict your concerns to fact based behavior. That's OK. My point was to suggest a better way of handling the purchsse of VR cards. I hope you didn't miss that part of my post.

I acknowkedged that you were right by saying YES. Sorry if that was not clear.

Some people think the NSA will come knocking on their door.

This makes no sense, if VR's are drying up in some area's, then why aren't you buying as much as you can when they are hanging on the rack? Also, if the TYP is ending again then you buy as much as you can until it ends...

I hope those people don't have cell phones.

Or engage in conversations about these covert activities on super secret internet forums where they go by totally anonymous pseudonyms that could never be tracked to them in any way . . . oh wait.