Harris Teeter pulls high values GCs
 

In perhaps another sign of the end of days --

I asked a HT CSR about the disappearance of the high value ($20-$500) variable load cards from racks at several stores. She said order came from corporate to pull those cards, mainly VGCs and MCGCs issued by Metabank.

Edit to add: this was in southeast Charlotte area.

Yes they started to pull them a few weeks ago. I found a store with some a few days ago, but they don't scan at the register. Manager said, that's right there was a memo. Their store had not pulled them yet. All denominations were out at a couple of stores, even $25.

i noticed too. All the reloadits are gone from my store too. this is DC area.

i'm wondering if this has anything to do with HT being bought by krogers recently

I noticed this as well over the weekend. I was home visiting family and went into a HT to see what they had. I was excited to see one $20-$500 Metabank Visa still on the rack as I had been looking for one to try out at various places. Sadly, the card would not scan and the manager was called and informed me that they had been told to pull them all from the shelves.

I lived in Charlotte for 13 years. Charlotte is horrible for MSing. People are too busy mudding to worry about flights and travel :cool:

MS has been quite good to me in Middle TN and Northern Alabama. :D

Ok, I changed it to "Charlotte" :D

I grew up in NC, so I get your point... ;)

The reason I found out the pull
 

I ran into a major issue with HT rejecting my try to buy high value cards. Then I asked a manager why they pulled all the cards the next time I returned to the store. Apparently HT was targeted by criminals posing as employee's of the GC company. They would call and pretend that they were testing the system. With the test they would ask the register person to scan a value in the card, then once in to give them the barcode number. They said the test worked fine and hung up. What the register worker didn't realize is that the criminals would fabricate the card with barcode and get the value off of it. I was told this, who knows if it is true but for full details I documented it here:

http://thetravelbuddyguy.com/2014/06...ng-gift-cards/

Whenever stores pull GCs, the reason is fraud 99.99% of the time. MSing has very little, if anything, to do with these things.

Strange how different Charlotte is. My area has been pretty good.

On a non-MS trip to HT yesterday, I noticed they had no variable VGC. they always do, so I thought it was curious. Good to know, and quite a bummer. This is in CLT, near uptown.

A few months ago, I tried to buy $100 gift card for a graduation gift. This was at a store that I had bought MANY $500s. The guy at customer service (might have been an assistant manager), said I couldn't use a credit card. He said something happened and that if someone ever disputed the credit card charge, the cash would still be on the card and the store would lose $$. So he was talking about fraud, not MS. Anyway, I thought it was funny because I had bought so many $500s, as well as Reload Its (before they got hard coded) and never had a problem. But I get busted for a $100. This is a store that I frequent for groceries as well, so the guy recognized me and I was friendly and polite. I said it was strange because I had bought another graduation gift earlier in the week and he said that the person shouldn't have sold it to me. Anyway, my son's girlfriend got a Ben Franklin instead of the gift card and I saved $5.95. :)

I knew something was up about a week ago, when my wife asked if she should pick up some cards while doing groceries. (Answer is always YES!). Anyway she texted me and said there was none, which wasn't unusual. But then she said they were ALL cleared, every denomination. I thought that was strange and I found the same thing at a location next to our house. As I mentioned a manager did say a corporate memo to pull them.

I wonder about sales though. I will be frequenting HT a lot less due to this and giving more business to the stores I can still work with (for as long as that lasts)

I figured it was fraud but it made me feel better knowing the "story". When I was in the store the last time and tried to purchase gc's @ 500 they made me feel like a criminal. I thought my actions caused the pull and I was going to be banned from the store, police would chase me, dogs hunting me down!

Granted my brain runs away with itself, but I just am happy that I'm not the primary reason. This is terrible though because there goes my primary place to do MS with x6 points. Even other stores in the general area in MD either don't carry the 500 or require cash only. It's kinda funny to me because if drug dealers wanted to scrub their money they can do it with ease now since these places WANT the cash!

I would not frequent them at all with those ridiculous prices that they have. If people in Charlotte were not so blindly loyal to HT, HT would have gone out of business decades ago. To put things in perspective: HT is more expensive than Whole Foods is in the Northeast. I can get organic food at Whole Foods for less than what HT sells conventional food for.

Ok, rant over :D

That's why Kroger bought them: higher margins, price-indifferent customer base. Accretive in first quarter since acquisition, enabled Kroger to report higher than expected earnings.

I completely agree. Other than sale items, HT is ridiculous. Publix is coming to Charlotte soon so that will add yet another price competitor (Food Lion, Bi-Lo, Lowes Foods, Trader Joe's have not been enough). We will see if Publix can make a difference. HT is convenient, and that's about all it has going for it. I much prefer TJ's and do 80%+ of my grocery shopping there.

Well I generally buy items on sale. They also get decent deals on wine and beer. Picked up 5 cases of Sierra Nevada @ 10.99

I agree though, for every day items, they are $$

I am also surrounded by HT, so convenience is a factor. I don't have TJ or WF close to me.

Harris Teeter is kaput in DC as well, so this is definitely not CLT only.

Never really got many from H-T, but it is always sad to see an option disappear.

I hope it doesn't forbode changes at Kroger in the future.

My grocery options for $500 reloadables in NC will be rather slim at that point.

Maybe another explanation is Kroger usually carries US Bank VGCs; they might eventually start selling those once all the Metabank cards are pulled.

It does seem strange that they would pull them from HT and not Kroger, if they're the same company.

I've never seen a Metabank card at Kroger, at least not in my region...

Sorry, I meant visa cards in general. HT has removed all denominations in the 3 I've been in.

You were going to use a 0% card?

hold up, Lowes Food :confused: same company as the home improvement store that has branched out or just a regional store that happens to have the same name?

Son of the founder of Lowes Home Improvement started it.

They have no business relation I don't believe other than the pedigree of the name.

Ha, the last part was meant as a joke. Of course I would've gotten CB for the gift card.

The Triad has been pretty good as well.

Teeter has tottered for MS. Glad they are not a mainstay down in Florida. Looks like they got a Caryish memo ala CVS.

The manager was going to sell me 5 $100 fixed denomination cards on credit since he couldn't sell me one card with a $500 balance since they were pulled.

Deleted.

I'm also in Middle TN...Nashville/Franklin/Antioch. I went to an HT and they were pulled this was a sad occurrence for me.

HT by me still has them but I guess it will get register denied...boo

Yup, doesn't come up when scanned and the cashier can not proceed.

I have some insight into the changes at HT. I swore to secrecy so will not reveal here but I will just say it absolutely was 100% to do with MS and nothing to do with some imaginary fraud scare. As is often the case the scare was more from one or two people doing extremely large volume that raised alarm bells.

Anyway HT is still a major part of my MS strategy just in other ways.

And I can confirm all high value GC's and Reloadit's are also gone from RDU area

Heh...why am I not surprised.

Why not just put a limit to how many can be purchased in a day? Why take them off of the shelf?