prefers road trips

I’ve had 2 successes AND 2 failures loading $200 MetaBank Blackhawk cards at different Walmarts. Both successes were with cashiers who knew how to reload a Discover debit card. Both failures were with cashiers who were unfamiliar — I told them it’s action code 70, and one wanted to review the instructions in the Discover app.

They each said the error was something like “debit not available,” but a transaction/reversal doesn’t appear in the giftcardmall transaction history.

At this point I don’t know if the problem is the Walmart location, the cashiers, or if I’m misleading them by saying “action code 70.” I’ll do some more trial & error unless someone has a suggestion

Edit: Less than an hour after my last “debit not available” failure, I went to a Walmart that had worked before. This cashier also didn’t know what to do, but instead of staring blankly, he got another employee, who instructed him to use action code 70 and the transaction went through (on the same Visa gift card that failed moments earlier at a different Walmart). At this point I’m wondering if some Walmart locations are coded not to accept $200 on MetaBank Blackhawk cards. I’ll update if I find out more

lowkeyflyer

What is the significance if there is a transaction and reversal?

MaxVO

I think it counts towards the 2 transactions/day limit. I've never been able to load the same day after such error.

prefers road trips

A couple pages earlier in this thread, someone showed this was happening with their reload attempts and they had to call Discover to get their account unlocked. It was the same message ("debit not available") but I guess there are different reasons why it might appear. In my case, it seems Walmart wasn't even attempting to charge the prepaid card, which makes me think that type of card might be blocked by some Walmart locations but not others. I'll try to narrow it down next week!

lowkeyflyer

Any update?

prefers road trips

Nothing conclusive, but it seems $99 debit charges (or less) on MB BHN Visas should go through at any Walmart.

It seems to be only certain terminals that allow $100+ debit transactions on that type of card. I’ve had successes and failures with both the new style and old style Walmart card readers, as well as successes and failures within the same Walmart location. I’m not spending a ton of time on this, but my next goal is to keep better notes on exactly which terminals have the successes and failures. Also I have now had success telling a cashier “action code 70,” so I’ve ruled that out as the issue.

Prometheus77

Thank you for your service 👍

lowkeyflyer

I agree with you. I have found terminals within the SAME Walmarts.

One that lets me do $200 swipe, and another that won't even let me do $99 swipe.

lowkeyflyer

WM is cracking down on this insanely hard in my area lately. Any ideas on how to hide the GC? Looking into a magstrip reader.

berombeu

you just need to find the cashiers that don't care or go to different walmarts. There is no other way. I have 1 walmart asking to see the card every time. So I just skip that walmart or try again with another cashier.

jeffersun

do you wanna know how I knew this would happen to you?

lowkeyflyer

Please do tell

berombeu

A little DP regarding to Discover 1% cash back. I was testing out loading Visa BB at FD using my Discover debit to pay for it. I got $1 cash back when loading $100 to the Visa BB. You can earn up to $30 each month to move money from Discover to Visa BB.

Gitangali

Some wm employees feel powerful being able to exercise this in a frustrating job. Its kind of fun for them to be at least somebody's boss. If they want to see the card then no amount of hiding is going to work.
I just went and dumped 2K on 2 discover cards and the employee didn't even flinch. it's very hit and miss.

On the way back stopped by walgreen where I get fee free GC and I told the employee hey you are running low on these cards, you might want to reorder. She said yeah he(manager) must be doing it. then she told me about we have to give you this fraud warning, I said, I know I have seen this many many times and dont even bother to read it. she said apparently there is fraud going on with these cards and I told her I never have to deal with it because I send these cards to nobody and she said oh yeah you use it yourself. some reps are just not zealots. they are easy to go along even when sometimes they would decline you because they were told to.

danpeake

And now he and everyone else at that store is burned... :-(