I had the strangest experience the other day, bought a Pathward/InComm Vanilla card and only after I left did I realize there was a sticker over the bar code, but the (original) printing goes right over it! At first I thought I had fallen victim to fraud like when the scammers insert a slip of paper for a completely different card, but the card showed as loaded, and at the 1 hr mark I could spend down all of it immediately. Maybe this is actually a case of old card stock being re-used at the factory...

This is actually the NEWEST version of Incomm VGC. Look more closely at the back of the packaging and you will see rather than one diagonal cut across the barcode on the card/packaging (like in the previous "new" VGC versions), there are actually TWO diagonal cuts, one on each end of the barcode. Not sure how this all makes it more secure, but I assume Incomm must know what they are doing (or maybe not?).

Any recent DPs on purchasing VGCs with BHN VGCs from OD/OM as a means of consolidation? Are SCO terminals just as restricting ($99/swipe) on BHN cards?

Not sure about using the BHN cards at SCO, but all the open-loop prepaid GCs were off the rack, including One/BB/etc as of yesterday around here on a couple of WMs. They have to be purchased at either CS or MC counter like old days now. You may want to just go and test it yourself just in case it may disappear at your WM(s) since purchasing GC with GC may create a problem with cashier.

They did the same thing at a WM in my area that was being hit by scammers stacking the racks with tampered GCs. What has worked for me is grabbing a couple extra VGCs at the other WMs that still have them on the rack and just buying them at the SCO at the WM where they are no longer on the rack. The SCO still allows for their purchase and load even if you take them from another WM.

Thru the years I've bought hundreds of $200 fixed VGCs during Staples fee-free promos, all of them were liquidated at WM. However, I've had several recent incidents that were ultimately caused by swipe failures of the VGCs. Swipe failures of valid cards are typically rather common and usually not problematic, however these were different. Two kinds of bad things happened to me multiple times - the first was when I tried to buy variable up to $500 Vanillas with the fixed Staples $200s at SCO - I had several successful swipes followed by several failures so I thought I completed the sales by paying the remaining balance with a normal credit card, HOWEVER the transactions ultimately failed and the roaming CSRs were called over to try to resolve. They never caught on to what I was trying to do but ultimately the Vanilla purchase was reversed and I was only charged for the token pack of gum that I included. (CSRs having to come over is never good). The second incidents were very odd - I was loading my Discover card at the money center with $99 swipes from the Staples cards and on two separate transactions in two different WMs one of the 99 swipes failed so I paid the remaining balance via my normal bank debit card. At the time this wasn't too surprising or concerning, however when I got home I found that on two cards where I only had one successful $99 swipe each I only had remaining balances of $2 instead of the correct $101, i.e. even though the second swipes failed I was still charged - I've been doing MS since the early 2010's and I've never seen this happen. Bottom line I'm giving up using Staples 200s at WM as the swipe failures make them more trouble than they're worth.

My go-to WMNM limits me to a total of only one money center transaction/day, and doing one $99 swipe isn't worth it.

When I do single swipes for loading either One or Serve at the WM cashier, the Staples cards work perfectly. Maybe you need to back off a bit on the number of swipes and location, just a suggestion ;)

How long did you wait after purchasing the card before you tried to spend the VGC before it didn't work?

It might work a bit differently with the PW VGC/MCGCss so perhaps the refund is delayed on a failed transaction unlike Vanilla VGCs which are instant. Give it some time and it should be auto refunded. I know when it comes to refunds with the PW VGC/MCGC cards it is severely delayed and the $99 is on hold and can take up to like 10 days for the refund if you check the status on the GCM website. Perhaps that is what is going on here. It would make no sense if it didn't come back

I'm in a midwest metro area with ~1M people. Until recently our WM gift card racks were typically fully stocked with dozens of Vanilla VGC/MCGC cards, but 2 weeks ago ALL our WMs pulled their entire inventory. Not sure if this is purely a local decision and when (or if) any replacements will be placed on the racks.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f8c14be852.jpg

Interesting, could be related to the recent ruling by CFPB against consumers -- when the cards get locked up or otherwise not working, consumers end up holding the bag.

Definitely not a local issue, saw the same the other day in another region, and plenty of other DPs on Reddit.

Do you have a link for the thread(s) on Reddit? I have searched and have not been able to find them.

Here's one - https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/co...omment/lczbu0y

The supercenter I checked had them but the Neighborhood Market did not. Strange.

My closest WMNM had the GC rack looking like the picture a few posts above. All the InComm cards were taken out, and only the Walmart store cards still remaining.