NetBrowser07

Is it just AGC? Do the others (VGC, MGC) work?

ChrisFlyer66

My local Simon Mall in San Diego (Fashion Valley Mall) does exactly that. I asked and was told that the new policy is that the employee fills out the entire form (except the customer signature of course), and that the form is required for all purchases now.

kharlamov

My local Simon Mall has a binder with completed copies of these forms. I believe that they also have extra forms that have been almost fully completed for previous customers. They just pull a partially completed form from the binder with my information already filled in, add information about the number of cards I'm purchasing in that transaction and ask me to sign the form in two places. The entire process is relatively painless.

It looks like the person staffing the customer service desk spends a lot of her time preparing gift cards for sale. She had piles and piles of gift cards with various amounts written on the cardboard holders.

Happy

My Simon's always require form for above $2K. However there was a new twist yesterday. The CSR said she was told now for ANY Consumer card purchase she needs to call one of the either the manager or the director of marketing (the boss of the manager - both are ladies) for approval before she could process the sale. We are "known entity" to the office, so when she called for approval, she just said Mr. and Mrs. So and So are here for their purchases. The other end apparently just said OK as the call was really brief. I dont know what triggers such new procedure. May be some bragging of the purchasers have irked some of the folks at the Simon's. The staff told me a guy came frequently and each time he talked about how he earned miles for his first class flights.

Simon's certainly is fully aware why people buy this for and provides the mean to do so, for a nice profit. Still this guy's constant bragging strikes me as pretty stupid.

rtraveler

That's always been the protocol at the SM I go to. They always made me sign the form but I always get $4k or more. They also always make a quick phone call to the management office saying "Mr. xxx wants to purchase X amount of GC's".

Happy

Never needed phone call before. I normally buy 10K myself and a few Ks in husband's cards. Yes, forms every time but the call is a new twist. On the Monday visit because the CSR ran out of the designs we wanted so we settled for 10K for me and 2K for husband with a mix of designs. Husband did not need to fill out form for 2k.

Mall management seems to be run by good folks based on numerous observations on how the higher up participating in doing a lot of physical labor related work, like moving big display panels etc.

redtop43

At my preferred location, lately they've been calling the manager each time to authorize, even though they know me by name now.

Of course I don't care.

CFFrost

My previous report was from an experience at Fashion Valley as well. Kind of frustrating because they used to be really low key. I usually bought in batches of <$3k so I normally didn't have to fill out the form. I wasn't trying to avoid filling out the form - I just split up my purchases across multiple cards throughout the month.

The funny thing about the rule that the employee must fill out the form is that my ID has my old address on it (CA does not issue a new ID based on change of address). She never even asked about my information, just started filling out based on the contents of my ID.

touristtrap

In one of my 3 locations in ATL they started doing the same about 1 month ago.
It appears they know me by name by the way she asked about approval.

us1549

For those with more than one Simon Mall in their area, is the limit 10k per mall, or 10k for the entire Simon Mall network?

ChrisFlyer66

I don't think they have any mechanism to prevent anyone from buying 10k from one mall then going to another mall and buying more.

bassmanben

$10K per day, per mall. If you need to do $20K each day, everyday, you're probably fairly epic. I'm guessing you're just trying to cut down the driving time for a month

us1549

Correct. Some of us have to drive great distances to get to a Simon mall, and would like to make as few trips as possible

MileageGoblin

I assume you are single. Getting an AU to go with you (my wife in my situation who I turned to the light ) cuts down on trips. You can even go to multiple malls in one day with them to really juice the efficiency....

bassmanben

If I brought my wife with me to the mall each time I went, I don't think any level of MS could make up for the additional cost that I'd be responsible for...