It's business as usual here in the Midwest (not Chicago). Not a sniff of a problem! I'm thinking it's likely a regional shutdown, as most of the data points are East Coast, and Houston, 2 posts above me, is still on the grid too.

just bought another 4 in Maryland. Been to 4 stores today and non have heard anything about going to cash tomorrow.

But wouldn't that mean you just bought them on 3/31 GMT?

Everything is fine and dandy here in MSP! I know today is still only the 30th, but the cashier didn't mention anything about cash only happening soon. Will stop in again tomorrow morning after work at 7:30am.

Your ability to buy them today has no impact on tomorrow. Not sure why people don't get that.

Bought the last 5 (the exact number I needed to max out the last relevant credit line). I'm not a religious person, but after trolling all of the racks and giving up, I found the last 2 just randomly sitting next to the cashier. Still no news in either store in Philly, but I assume the managers just are off for the weekend.

Once you reach 5k daily limit, can you buy VRs for $500 only?
I believe $500 VRs does not require Id verification.

Data point:
Rural PA
Bought $15k/ month there for about 10 months.
90% success with all those purchases.
Stopped in at 7:15PM EST asked the friendly manager she knew nothing.
Attempted to buy.
Hard coded cash only.

I asked her why early the memo online says tomorrow. She says most stores close at 6:00 and the registers update then for the next day.

Oh well, fun while it lasted!

I think they are caught up on when the daily limit clock resets. However, in my opinion it's more conceivable that the POS update would roll out around midnight EST not right now. Just a hunch.


EDIT: Post directly above clarifies things.

Central Ohio:
Just bought 5k+1k+1k an hour ago...talked to a couple Asst. managers in 2 different stores about the alleged cash only policy, both of them said that they didn't hear anything or not aware of any changes but it may not matter anyway if its gonna be hard coded into the cash registers to not allow CC for VR's...so will see...on another note I noticed that they keep them upfront to discourage people taking them out of the stores unactivated based on what of the managers told me...

I bought 10k at 6:17pm in Philly per the receipts, so this is clearly not correct even statewide.

Data: Just bought the remaining VRs in West Texas. My favorite cashier (and cash register) knew nothing about cash only.

I bought 5k worth at 6:35pm in NJ.
But the manager did show me the memo when I asked. Cash only as of tomorrow.

Correct, anything less than 1K (i.e., $999 and lower) does not require an ID scan.

I doubt everything will happen at midnight tonight. Even though the memo says 3/31, POS update likely needs to done in batches. Different CVS registers will be updated at different time or different dates. Some registers may even be offline and won't be updated for a week or two. Some POS may have been updated already. To update all CVS registers all at once requires quite a bit of computer power and bandwidth.;)

That memo is supposed to direct all CVS to manually enforce "cash only" sales before POS update. We will see what happens.