Easiest MS ever?
 

So... I tried to pick up a few GCs of various stores & restaurants tonight for Christmas gifts.

So the clerk runs all of them through the register, I swipe my card, charge accepted. THEN the register rejects one of the brands and insists the clerk refunds me in cash, which the clerk does muttering something about the card being defective. So I grab another one of those GCs, this time doubling the amount I want to put on it. Sure enough, same thing happens, more Benjamins handed over to me. I thanked the clerk for their time and carried the GCs which did work back to the car, where I couldn't stop giggling at the easiest and fastest MS I've ever hit.

Has anyone else ever encountered this? I haven't and I've been playing the MS game lightly since the US Mint days. That said, as soon as I hit Submit on this post, I'm hopping back in the car to hit a different store and play the GC/cash register slot machine again! I'll update my post, positive or negative when I get back. :)

UPDATE: I just tried a different store with the same purchase. Everything went through normally. Darnit. I'm heading back to the original store when they open tomorrow, but unfortunately this looks like it truly is an anomaly and not systemic.

"Has anyone else ever encountered this? "

you have to name the store when you ask this question.

As with all MS, if you stumble across something good you tend to hold it close and (ab)use it for yourself before it gets killed. I was hoping to kill off my Freedom cards' Q4 before releasing this to the wolves. :)

Seeing that it seems to be an isolated incident, I'll throw it out here and see if other people want to gamble on it. I'll probably hit a few more stores today just in case it's more widespread than one store.

Here's the transactions:

Walgreen's:
Transaction #1:
2x Lowe's -- success (normal)
1x Ruth's Chris -- invalid, refunded via cash. Receipt shows as "Electronic Card Not Activated." The clerk definitely scanned & swiped the GC in question.

Transaction #2:
2x Ruth's Chris -- invalid, refunded via cash.

Store #2
2x Lowe's -- success
2x Ruth's Chris -- success (I never thought I'd be UNhappy to see a GC work)

So, it appears that the systems don't activate the cards until AFTER payment is tendered, which is what makes this work. Keep this in mind and you might be to find times when this is more likely to happen.

YMMV. If you try it, let us know whether it works for you or not.

Kind of a win/win with this one. If it fails, you get the fastest/easiest MS you've ever had. If it doesn't, you get a nice dinner.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is a known issue at that chain with activation problems. You were fortunate that the particular location refunded you because that isn't corp. policy. Many of us have had to go through the card issuer in order to get refunded or the card re-activated. Your success was probably a combination of location/manager and the gcs were store type and not OVs. I've rarily ever heard of OVs getting refunded instantly when there's a problem. I don't even shop at WG anymore because my area had so many activation problems and the process to get your money back is a hassle IME, including faxing the packaging, receipt and so forth. I always keep gc packaging (forever), stapled to receipt and filed in our MS boxes.

Ruth's Chris, home of the $10 onion rings.

Walgreens is no go in my area for any MS.

@Churnman: Thanks for the feedback! Every data point helps paint the picture. I just couldn't believe my fortune last night when I hit this. It seemed too good to be true.

I've since tried a 3rd WG and the cards worked fine there. Going to see if I can swing back by the original store tonight and see if I can give it one more try. Definitely taking your words of caution though.

Mods, please change title of thread to "Luckiest MS Ever"? :)

Sounds like it's become the biggest PITA MS

At CVS one time, two of the cards didn't activate correctly, and the register automatically prompted for a refund on the card. I used split payment and didn't want it refunded on the same card. I was able to use another card.

I did go back & revisit the original Walgreen's and was able to pull this trick 2 more times before they finally removed the defective cards from the shelf.

I've had two even better (non-)MS in the last two weeks.

1) Bought something for $3.99 at whole foods (with the OBC getting 5% off). Realized I had bought the wrong flavor, and returned it. They gave me $4 dollars back in cash. Score! Just needs a bit of work to scale up.

2) Bought the wrong type of thing at CVS, returned and they said if the right thing was the same price just exchange rather than go through the hassle. Original purchase $6.79, correct product was $6.99. They said that's fine. So thinking should I exchange for something that's $7.19 and so on, till maybe get a $500 OV for $6.79? But too busy returning stuff at Whole Foods....

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we're vacationing and since I read this deal, I checked if there are HyVees where we are and there's a few of them nearby. BINGO! it helped the stores we went to were friendly, we had our DLs ready, they didn't even check. The manager said total no more than $1,999.99 and customers can buy twice . The totals came up a lot less because of the discount. DH and DD did their own transactions which helped fulfill our sign up bonuses on a lot of cards. I thought the OD gig was great, this proved to be more profitable combined with our AoRs. I have drained more than half of the GCs today. This vacay was not just fun but very profitable.

There's still time for those to buy the variable GCs and get your share of "free money". I was told the promo ends tonight.

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