Anybody buy today? Suddenly my CVS very adamantly told my wife cash only for VR, and apparently according to the cashier it's hard coded (she showed her the screen), and since it's the first of the month wanted to see if anyone else had the same experience. Hoping it's just this store. Will try another store on monday.

4k today, put 3k on an AmEx GC and the rest on my CC.

Location?

5K an hour ago no problem. One transaction

The Vermont Ave CVS Store in Washington, DC did exactly that - they banned the hider from buying VR cards at the store. They caught him buying a bunch of cards at the register and the store knew there were zero on the racks. He was asked "Where did you get these?" but he didn't have a logical answer. Others started doing the same thing, so eventually this store got tired of this game and switched to CASH ONLY. That's what the clerk who stocked the cards told me.

So go ahead and hide them. If you get banned or run across an angry MSer who was deprived of an equal opportunity to buy, don't say you weren't warned about the results of your actions. At the very least, it's bad karma and something Jesus would never do! ;)

No issues buying today.

Hiders have taken a hold of my two locations in the Chicago suburbs. (Store manager says there should be xx amount in the store however none are easily found.)

If anyone knows of other locations in the Chicago/Chicago suburbs, I'd appreciate a PM.

Yes, this information is useless unless the poster at least gives us the city and state where this happened. And the poster didn't list his location in his profile, either. Why don't people use a little common sense and provide enough information to help the rest of us? Maybe we can find another store in the city that still accepts CCs, refuting the theory that it was hard coded in more than one CVS store.

Having worked with the IRS and studying taxpayers who have no bank accounts, I can assure you that most of the so-called "underbanked" deal strictly in cash and buying money orders to pay bills that can't be paid in person with cash. I would bet that 98% of all VR cards are purchased by MSers.

What I don't understand is how CVS can possibly make any money on CC purchases of this card. Cash is cash and no way is Incomm going to discount the cash amount or they would quickly go bankrupt. Incomm must keep some portion of the $3.95 fee to make a profit. This is very different from the sale of store gift cards, where you must buy something at the store (like Applebees, Macy's, or iTunes). They can give the merchant a substantial discount because you aren't buying a cash equivalent and the store still makes money or at least breaks even.

CVS, on the other hand, must pay a minimum of 1% of the transaction as a merchant fee. This guarantees a loss on every CC purchase of a VR card over $395. That is, of course, unless the merchant fee is somehow waived on the dollar value of the VR cards.

I would guess that CVS does this is as a "loss leader" (like grocery stores used to do with milk) and they want you to buy other merchandise in the store with a 50% mark up or higher,

That's the theory I am tending to drift towards...the individuals buying these virtual beans are of a totally different socioeconomic level than those folks who actually purchase real beans and consume them.

Take myself, for example, this AM I presented to the cashier, along with my 5K of beans, two bags of jerky (they were on sale today), a large bag of Takis for my son, and a couple bottles of wine. Probably wouldn't have bought any of that stuff if were not for the Vanilla.

I was at my usual cvs the other day buying $5k worth of vr's. I set 10 vr's on the counter and the cashier says, $500 each? I smile and say yep. Then he says, most people only buy 1 or 2 at a time, but you and another guy usually by several thousand dollars worth. I just chuckled.... I'm glad all of the cashiers at my cvs are so friendly. Just got my second 100K citi card in the mail so I'll probably stop by cvs tomorrow and see how many vr's they still have in stock.

5K worth of beans at a time in Chicagoland?!! I struggle with 1K and get all sorts of excuses from arrogant, clueless supervisors…:mad:

"Only $250 allowed using a credit card"
"Only $500 allowed in one transaction and machine won't let it after that"
"Only $250 allowed per day" (for real!!)

Months ago, I picked 7 cards at a CVS in western 'burbs and she called the manager for the authorization. At first the manager was adamant about $1.5K limit (this is after daily limit was changed $5k). I politely tried to convince him at which he demanded for my DL so he can make a copy for fraud protection and verify with cc issuing bank!!! Completely and utterly ridiculous.

Ive personally had it with stores that want to take my id and ccs out of my sight line to copy it or do whatever. I have thus made it a policy to do the following when that begins to happen:

1) sir/maam. You are putting me in the position of being a customer you do not trust. I am deeply offended as im doing nothing wrong. Im going to report you to the district manager in writing unless you stop right here.

2) i will call the police right now because if you take my ids into the back room for whatever reasons--you say to cover your ars ad make a copy, how do i know you or one of your employees isnt later going to steal MY information and hack me? I therefore demand something o yours to keep a copy of or i call the cops right now and accuse you of id theft.

3) threaten lawsuit.


In each case ive run into this i have ended up with a store manager kissing my arse in hopes i return to do business

I like #1. Don't care about store manager kissing arse but if a store doesn't bother me, I make them my go-to store.

I went to a Staples today to pick some GCs… been there several times and all their managers have never given me problems. Normally, cashiers ring the cards, call them up to authorize high $ amount and they do it. However, last time some newbie asst mgr comes up, asks for a second form of id besides the DL (which I didn't have) and then w/o asking me walks with with id and cc to the back room!!!! :mad::mad:
I called his employee and asked him to step out. He was like "I have to call cc firm as per policy and get confirmation". Bogus!!
I have shopped for beans and GCs in half dozen states (at least), and the arrogance of these uninformed employees just annoys me so much!! I was nice enough to walk away but next time, I am raising hell. Don't want me as a customer? Fine. But you don't get to take my id out of my sight. :mad::mad:

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