Sere81

I have a vanilla visa that says "details could not be found using the card number entered. Please try again" when I try to check the balance online.

I just opened the card from the packaging. Unfortunately I cant find my store receipt for this card. I'm pretty good at keep track on my records but this seems to be an exception.

I'm 99% sure I have found out where I bought it (food city) using the info I gathered on my amex account site.

Next course of action should be what I'm wondering? This is a $500 card that I don't want to eat.

Thank you.

Phantom707

Request a receipt from the store. If it was recent enough, they should still have it on record.

nwflyboy

Next steps would be...

1. Start preparing yourself to face the fact that you may be out $500. If you really don't have the store receipt, you don't have much recourse.
2. Stay calm and give it a little time. You didn't indicate how long ago you bought the card. If it was just hours ago, the activation might still be working its way through the system. Try in a few hours.
3. You can TRY going back to the store and asking them for help, but without a receipt, I wouldn't expect much other than sympathy.
4. Learn the lesson for next time: this is not an activity for those who:
- are not well organized
- don't ALWAYS always follow up and manage details (like keeping receipts)
- can't afford to float, or perhaps eat, the cost of whatever they're playing with

There are risks with this activity, you have run into one. Me, I have a $500 gift card from January that a cashier nerfed. I did everything right, the cashier basically wiped the value of the card out because he didn't know what he was doing. He - and everyone else at the store - acknowledge that. I'm still fighting and waiting for a refund, which may or may not ever come. Part of the risks of this game.

Good luck.

Sere81

Sorry, the date of the transaction was 5/18. Almost a month ago. If I went to my local store with what information I can get from amex on my account will they be able to look it up?

If food city doesn't want to help should I try disputing the charge? I don't want to do that for obvious reasons but is that an option as last resort or will I end up doing more damage than good?

ChrisFlyer66

I can't speak to your specific store, but I once had a purchase from Ralph's (a Kroger grocery store) on which I needed an old receipt from three months earlier. I had the exact time and amount of the transaction and they were able to look up the transaction and print out a document with the transaction details (similar to a receipt).

Personally, I wouldn't dispute the transaction.

nwflyboy

I think your only hope is to go to the store, with the exact date, time and the register you used, and ask them to/hope they can re-generate a receipt. Without that, you are probably SOL.

Disputing the charge will probably fail ultimately (and may have other consequences which you can guess).

To dispute a charge, you are claiming that you did not receive what you purchased. The store will take the position that you paid for a gift card, and they sold you a gift card, so you received what you purchased (actually, they will take the position that you seem to have bought SOMETHING from them, but you have no proof it was a gift card). The fact that the funds have been drained from your card is not their problem, that's between you and the bank that issued the card. The bank that issued the card, and the place that sold it to you, will probably insist on seeing your receipt.

Look at it from their side: if they give you a refund, what's to stop every person with a used (drained) gift card from coming back and asking for a refund, or giving their drained card to a buddy who would then go and ask for a refund. Waving a credit card statement that shows you bought something at the store on some day a month or two back isn't going to carry much weight.

I think the receipt is critical. Get that, and you'll at least have a chance (although it may take months - mine is still ongoing since February). Without a receipt...not so much.

Good luck.

Sere81

I understand everything you are saying and thank you all for the help thus far.

I do want you to know that the vanilla hadn't been "drained". The website is pretty much saying there is no history with the account numbers like what would happen if someone just took a card off the rack and pocketed it without paying for it. It's just a dead card.

hamokmonky

If it is one of those that does not have a window in the back of the packaging, then most likely you got a tampered card where they switch the card inside with a different card. Yours will show as never having been activated, but in reality the receipt will show that another card has been activated, which has already been drained by the fraudsters. So it will be even more of a pain to get your money back because you wont be able to tie the card back to the receipt unless you have the packaging the card came with. Of course, if its just a simple activation problem, the receipts tend to show that too. If its something else, well that would be a new one, those are the 2 typical scenarios.

BHArt

I've had this happen twice where the cards just didn't activate or said "pending" on the receipt but always had the receipts (thanks to some earlier experiences) and with those in hand as well as the packaging I've had them resolved in 24 hours. Getting back to the store and getting the receipt is going to be your best course of action. Without that you may well be out the $500 and as to other remedies you aren't likely to find many successful ones. DO keep the packaging and card, Incomm will want you to email photos of them, but definitely the receipt as well. The store receipt will have the terminal digits on the gift card whereas your amex transaction receipt will not, this is the key on Incomm's end to verifying it was your purchase and is legit.

dethkultur

Did you call Vanilla? I've had activation issues in the past, and their reps were actually pretty accommodating, even if I had to follow up a couple of times. They WILL ask for a receipt, but they may have some sort of emergency option. If you still have the packaging that may help (at least they might be able to track that the specific card was actually purchased and never loaded, and that you bought at the store and time you claim.) You have nothing to lose.

Add this to your lessons learned - don't rest on a non-liquidated card. Take care of it as close to the same day as possible. A good chunk of issues on this board for GCs of all kinds is from people who left them in a stack, and waited a long time to do something with them.

nwflyboy

THIS.

These things are like ticking time-bombs. They do not get better with the passage of time. A day or two is rarely a big deal. Once you are starting to count weeks, you are open to all sorts of troubles.

cruisr

Absolutely. Buy and liquidate the same day is what I do. Once I went 24 hours but a month, that would never happen. OP I hope it works out for you.

bigshooter

I second the buy and liquidate option.... Longest I went was 24 hours when I bought My Vanilla instead of One Vanilla... Decided I wasn't going to wait for perm card and went to get MO.

Two weeks ago I ended up getting a $500 MO instead of $1000 and didn't notice that one for two days (spacing out deposits). Fortunately I had receipt and store immediately gave me a replacement $1000 MO.

Moral is do this in manageable amounts and liquidate asap.

diseased

I can only reiterate what others have said about getting some sort of receipt. I tried to purchase two gift cards at a local grocery store and the cashier was having problems activating the second one and the line was so long so I told her not to worry about it. Around 4am the next morning I checked the balance on the card she gave me and it gave the same error you received. She had given me the unactivated card. I flew back to the store at 6am and no one could find it and the only person with any "authority" kept saying the numbers on the receipt wouldn't match the number on the packaging, like a broken record. Finally one cashier dug through the trash and found my card but I made sure the other idiot knew the number on the receipt should match the numbers on the back of the packaging.

satman40

Put the receipts in the same bag as the cards, and put them in the glove box till you get home..

Even them you can have a problem, so you dispute it with your CC Company,

No letter from the merchant in 30 days you win..

Happen to me OD...

USE THE BAG FILLING SYSTEM,