xobile

How do you calculate 'profit' in your case? Are you getting $10k in cards every day? Or 25k now? Have you ever had any issues?

redtop43

I calculate profit as CB less fees paid (GC purchase fees, MO fees, BP fees) and cost of lost cards (it happens). I don't include travel expenses to buy cards, although I try to buy cards when I'm near a mall. I get $25K on days I go, which is not every day. Of course I've had issues! I've had cards lost and one stolen. Had credit cards and bank accounts closed. Spent three weeks in jail for money laundering before I could get a bail hearing - JUST KIDDING. Took legal action against one financial institution (and got what I considered a very favorable settlement). Had cards that I had to call Blackhawk Network for one reason or another to have them replaced. But it's still very profitable, and way more so since SM went to $25K and $1K.

xobile

Thanks for the response. How do you keep track of it all? I tried keeping a spreadsheet but it got convoluted and I couldn't keep track of what was being used when, especially with residual amounts messing me up. Now I just try to remember how many I bought and how many have been converted to money orders and deposited, and toss all the cards and receipts and money order receipts into a packet. I'm hoping there will never be an audit but I know if there is I'd have trouble properly tracking each transaction. Please feel free to ignore this, but what was the legal action regarding? I would imagine they would just say, it's a gift card, tough luck and caveat emperor.

ericdabbs

Personally the best way I keep track of stuff is through a spreadsheet. Perhaps your spreadsheet is insufficient or is overly complicated to keep track of everything. Having to "memorize" what you bought day after day is not a good strategy and would be impossible to keep track of everything.

redtop43

My legal action involved a credit card that was cancelled with rewards outstanding. It was settled amicably.

I have a spreadsheet with multiple tabs. The one thing I don't try to track is the actual credit card numbers, logging them in and out. I kind of wish I had the patience to do that, as it would help me identify the occasional loss or misdirected card. However I keep track of the following:

1) Bill payments made by day, which allows me to project payments for the next 30 days.
2) Number of cards by denomination that I have on hand, and a projection of likely future purchases and receipts.
3) As a result of (1) and (2) above, I can tell if I'm going to run out.
4) Log of mail orders made through GCM, when the order is made, shipped, and received.
5) List of money orders by number, when they were purchased, what I did with them, and when I sent them.
6) Periodically I tabulate the balances across all my credit cards, bank accounts, and money orders and gift cards on hand.

In addition I track the following in Quicken:

1) Gift cards bought
2) Bill payments made
3) Money orders purchased
4) Money orders sent to a bank or credit card
5) Rewards redeemed

Is it a lot of work? Somewhat. Maybe 15-20 minutes a day. I'm retired and it gives me something to do. It also lets me know if something is going off the rails.

The tabulation of all accounts (which I do 1-3 times a week) lets me see the progress I'm making. Normally it goes down a bit day by day, as I expense fees to purchase GC's, buy MO's, and make BP's. But of course it goes up when I redeem rewards. Right now, I have a 5-figure amount of my "own money" invested, meaning that I took my money and used it to pay down credit cards so that the available credit frees up quickly enough to buy more cards. I show this in my tabulation as "borrowed" (from myself). My plan is to take a few thousand per month "out" of the GC funding and transfer it to my "personal" accounts, and eventually get the borrowed part down to zero. I've already taken enough "out" and put it aside to buy the car I was saving for.

TyPo311

Lol at the above. Redtop it sounds like you're living the retired MSers dream! God speed

Burton Codh

I use a simple spreadsheet that has type (amex/visa/mc), where I bought it from, date purchased, original value, last four of card number, and then a column to show where I used it (or blank if not yet used). Once I mixed up my used and unused cards and this saved me the time of having to check value on every single one and it also helps quantify how much I've done and when. I do the same thing as you with receipts and used cards, saving them just in case I screw something up.

For residual values, I put any cards that are fully used in my back pocket and any with residual value in my wallet. My closest two grocery stores autodrain gift cards so I go through self checkout and swipe the one(s) in my wallet to use them up. Given I mostly buy MO at grocery stores I can generally finish them off on the same trip.

chaser123

I write off residual amounts as MS cost. One of my liquidation methods causes me to have 66 cents left on each card. I keep the cards and drain them whenever I happen to go to a supermarket but I have over a thousand of them.

ogg

If your method consistently leaves you with 66 cents residual, why not get the cards for 66 cents less? You can load the cards for any amount you say. Or add 66 cents to whatever your method is for liquidating...

ericdabbs

LOL. I find it much easier to liquidate my residual amounts to Amazon GCs online. The minimum you need is 50 cents.

Chelski

Y M M V

redtop43

My residual amounts are all 3 cents or less. If you're going to log your cards, I suggest you either (a) keep the receipt from the purchase or (b) write down the 19-digit number on the back, as that is what BHM customer service works by. Of course, the J-hook cards, when activated, only give the 19-digit number on the receipt.

Each day when I go to WM, I take a piece of paper tri-folded with the bills I want to pay. I have the CSR's staple the two receipts (the WM receipt and the CFP receipt) to the paper, fold it up, and write the date on it. Then I put that receipt in a bin.

I track the number of cards I'm supposed to have, but in practice it would be hard to track them down. Say my inventory said I should have 23 but I actually have only 22. First of all, I've found my first step is to check my accounting. It's quite possible that I mis-recorded the number of cards used. Since Quicken ultimately balances to my credit card and bank accounts, I know that the value of cards redeemed in Quicken will be accurate. So if I had a day that I spent per Quicken $10,000 but the total of cards redeemed according to my spreadsheet was only $9,500, I probably made a spreadsheet error.

If I know for sure that I'm missing one (or more) cards, I can potentially match up the receipts from buying the cards to the receipts from Walmart and the cards I have on hand. However, if the receipts have the 19-digit number from the back or they are cards I bought online (which don't come with a receipt) I'm SOL. In theory I could call BHN and say "I bought the following order numbers, can you check if any cards haven't been redeemed?" But it still wouldn't perfectly match up because I don't have a log of the card numbers in each BHN order.

I once had a card that I strongly suspect was stolen by a friend who was staying with me. It was definitely a card I bought and that was used at several local stores other than WM. I also had at least one card that I found wedged under the seat in my car - one of the J-hooks. I have a cash box that I try to pretty religiously keep all the cards in, along with pre-printed SM purchase forms.

One of the unfortunate things about this is that there is so much money involved that any time I encounter someone who has any idea that I do it, if they aren't immediate family or a friend I've known for many years, I feel like I have to hide them or lock them up. If I've been dating someone and we've gone out a few times it's likely that I've told them this is something I do, but I still feel the need to secure them somehow. Just because I've gone out with someone 2 or 3 or 4 times doesn't mean I believe they'd resist the temptation to help themselves to thousands of dollars.

chaser123

No just lazy. My point was simply, if you do something the has a small residual balance, its not worth the effort to track. Even if you liquidate on amazon, just leave them in a stack until you process them. I also keep detail spreadsheets and just include the residual as my liquidation cost. If I ever get it back, its a bonus (or just a discount on whatever I purchase).

Chris58

Personally, I use Quicken to track all aspects of this game, (it's fairly easy for me as I've used the software for 25+ years).

It's not automatic and to use this software effectively there's a learning curve for a new user.

Since you mention an Audit, this is the ONLY concern I have about playing this game, (since I own my own business, that's primarily cash based, and routinely deposit approximately $1 million/year in actual cash to my business account.).

For this reason, I keep a solid paper/plastic trail for every deposit of M.O.'s, (I've NEVER done a WMBP since I've seen too many data points of CC closure due to anonymous payments).

My paper/plastic trail is very simple, (for each deposit of M.O.'s).

For example the receipt from Simon, (and any other GC's included in the deposit), stapled to all the M.O. purchase receipts. All the M.O. tear-off stubs stapled to this. Wrapped around the actual GC's liquidated and the deposit receipt.

Nice and tidy way to show where the deposited funds came from if a future audit suspects un-reported income.

skaterr03

This is exactly what I do. I track every card, where it came from, the rewards I got, the money order purchase and where/when it’s deposited in a corresponding spreadsheet.