The 200 Everywhere cards work just fine at WM, but only up to 8-9 swipes in 5-10min. Then the debit errors show up.

Had a small but short freakout @WM yesterday. I wanted to pickup some vannis, went to the kiosk, NO vannis. I looked all around all four sides. I thought, oh no they've pulled them all here too. Other than the misc stuff, there were only pathways, all christmas themed.

Then it hit me, the kiosk seemed tall. I walked down a ways, and there was the reg kiosk. They had put the holiday kiosk where the reg one normally is, and moved the reg one down several aisles.

WHEW!

I'm a creature of habit and have been buying boatloads of USB VGCs from Kroger for over a decade, but with all the recent fraud issues with them, I've finally given up on them. As such, I've recently had to branch out into other VGC types that I'm much more unfamiliar with. I've bought Safeway Suttons (these seem easy to liquidate, although 3 of my 4 purchases of these ALSO resulted in fraudulent cards with #s on the front card scratched out, 3 digit security codes scratched out, and even paper photocopies covering the barcodes). I've also branched into WM VGCs. Seems the SS VGCs (40975808) are easily liquidateable most places. So are some other Pathward/Incomm VGCs I bought at WM. However I've run into serious issues liquidating the new Xmas/Holiday type Vanilla Pathword/Incomm VGCs (40975823) ANYWHERE. Can't liquidate them into MOs at Kroger/Safeway/WM. I can't even load them into various instruments FOR UNDER $49 at WM SCO. If you scroll up to Post #356 in this thread, it looks like somebody else is having the same issues, and finally had success loading these into Amazon last week. My Amazon balance is already high enough that I'd prefer not to dump these there, so I may simply hafta just use these for organic spending, but moral of the story is to stay far away from the WM Holiday VGCs (40975823)!!! If anybody here figures out a decent way to liquidate these things, lemme know pls!!!

Have you tried going on a road trip? I happened to visit a northern part of my state over the weekend, and all 4097's magically started to work at WM. They still don't work in my home area.

I was finally able to liquidate those cards after they were cleared by phone CS. And the next batch worked ok from first swipe.

It may be local/regional random extra monitoring they do if there's an uptick in people draining them, or cases of fraud.

Were these the "Holiday" version of 40975823 (Pathward/Incomm)? Cuz there are actually at least 2 different 40975823 versions I've run across. As seen in the pic below, the red Holiday VGC can't be liquidated anywhere that I've found into MOs (I finally unloaded it into my Utility acct just now as a debit card). The standard VGC on the right can be liquidated into MOs at various stores including WM, used at WM SCO, etc. Both of these are Pathward/Incomm and were both bought at WM (in the packaging that has half the barcode on the packaging and the other half on the actual VGC). They sure are making the game hard for us these days.........
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...02c90b590c.jpg

Never seen the holiday card before, but I get those gold stripe ones on the right. Today had no issues with liquidation. The one time I had the error they were blocked by the issuer, but unblocked after a call. I've never seen Vanillas completely fail for any MC transaction. Maybe try them at a grocery store and see if that works.

I’m only able to use 2-4 Eveywhere cards at a time before the debit errors show up. Sometimes swiping a Vanilla VGC in between helps, but sometimes it doesn’t. Waiting 5 minutes or so between swipes seems to work. Sometimes swiping 2 or 3 other Everywhere cards will finally work, but not always. It’s the damdest thing - I can’t quite figure it out.

Indeed, very unpredictable. Depends on the whims and moods of their anti-fraud system for your particular area.

Today I did 7 swipes with no issues, on the 8th the debit errors rolled in but after 3 tries on card finally worked.

Very strange.

How's this strange? Any MS is always region dependent. DP's in this thread in particular have been divergent for many months.

did your holiday card issues clear up? first time i tried loading debit at walmart with the holiday vanilla, it failed, but then so did the normal vanilla as well. next day i tried a MO with the holiday at a different grocery and it worked. and then following day holiday worked to load debit at wm

Ran into a really weird issue today and figured I'd give a DP.

I was consolidating BHN MCGCs 5113 32. I went to a manned register and did one $500 SS. Swiped first MCGC, autodrain $200. Swiped second, autodrain $200. Went to do remaining on my ABG. ABG went through and pending charge showed up, but I got a debit load not authorized code 34 (fraud), and the register canceled the entire transaction, voided the SS, refunded all the credits. Now I'm gonna have to sit and wait 2 weeks on my ... for the $400. Sucks.

I haven't even made another attempt after it failing at WM, Kroger, and Safeway during various attempts the few days after I bought it. I was gonna try another local grocery store, but haven't had time. Glad you mentioned that your Holiday VGC issues cleared up. I will give it another go with mine soon!

I'm fairly new to buying VGCs at WM, used to exclusively buy USB VGCs at Kroger until the poo started hitting the fan with those VGCs recently. However I have run into this same issue at WM when buying VGCs. If I buy say 4 x $500 VGCs, about 2 of them will fail and be refunded, so only 2 of the 4 get activated. It's very annoying honestly, this never happened at Kroger. That said, the cards were all refunded IMMEDIATELY and the funds were back on my CCs within 1-2 days, I definitely didn't hafta wait 2 weeks. I think I read reports here on FT of others encountering this same issue.