Yea, too bad all the moves seem to be downward :mad:

...It's almost as if they want to completely disrupt our manufactured spending attempts to purchase money orders and accumulate credit card bonuses...

True. Buy why? Do they only make money on people who don't drain their gift cards? Otherwise, I'd have to believe that manufactured spenders are a huge part of their sales. A "normal" person might buy a couple of Visa/Mastercard gift cards in a year. The MS crowd might average 100.

My understanding is that they make money through breakage and interest on held assets. A ms'er will generally drain every cent from a card within a few days whereas a normal person might buy a $25 card with a $5 fee, hold it for a couple of months, and then spend $22 and forget about the remainder. A normal person gives them much greater benefit.

Another DP from Weis. Tried $480.21 for total of $481 but didn't work. $479.21 + $0.79 for $480 total did work.

I'm certain that Blackhawk would make more money per transaction from a normal person. But do they make no money from MSers? If a person buys a gift card and immediately spends it, is that unprofitable for Blackhawk? If it is, I can see why they're doing what they're doing. If they do make even a modest profit from quick-turn transactions, it doesn't make much sense.

duh! 🙄🙄

Maybe they think they can make a bigger profit from these moves. For sure there will be more breakage if people keep buying 500's as inevitably some cards with residual will get lost or forgotten. There are also extra swipe fees when you do drain the card.
Even a small % increase might be enough to hit a new Financial Goal they have set for themselves

It seems like some sort of game theory right now with things moving all the time. If it was some sort of fraud concern you would think they would have stopped it altogether rather than going down in $5 increments

Does anyone know if there's a list of merchants who sell gift cards serviced by Incomm? That seems to be valuable information these days.

Well, you can't "stop it altogether" as the cards are also used for "legitimate" purchases. It's a balancing act and they have to keep regulations in mind as well.

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Tried $479 (+$1 Fee) using Meta/BHN VGC and MGC today, both time got "Not Authorized". Did not try a smaller amount.

Wow, I did 3 for $480 total last night. Minimum of 8 minutes between each. No problems at my local grocery chain.
Any others seeing problems with 480?

You are lucky that your local grocery store allowed you to do that without raising any suspicion. I also had no problem getting a MO for 479.65 including fee but I only got one.

The only grocery store that sells MO for $1 near me requires that all the MOs have to be paid with one debit card.

I suppose I could try walking out the store and coming back in a few minutes, but I haven't done that.