We have a couple of different family members who are each having July weddings.
Instead of buying a gift, we bought each of them a Visa card that can be used anywhere like a regular credit/debit card (vs a WalMart card that can be used only at WalMart).
I can't activate it...or more like I won't. It cost me fifty-six bucks each to buy the cards and load $50 on each... but when I called the 800 number (and also tried the online activation) they expect me to give them all sorts of information that I'm not willing to do! Like my fricken social security number!! I kid you NOT.
It's like buying flowers for someone and being required to write down your SSN on the card before sending them or giving them! What is up with THAT??
Don't believe it? Here's the screen shot (note that I only got from page one - entering the number on the card and the activation number on my receipt...to page two where I would not give any of that private information!)
There are FIVE pages of personal questions in total!
WTF?!!?? (click to make the pic bigger)
14 comments:
The use of SS numbers is so the IRS
can track the cash.
Can you say money laundering
Good to know. Guess I'll never be purchasing one as a gift. It will be old fashioned checks.
I guess the convenience of the card isn't as convenient as one would think or hope.
Now THAT, JL, is an inconvenient truth! Somebody call Al Gore!
P.S. From now on, all monetary gifts will be vintage greenbacks. Period.
I quit buying these things eon's ago. Target gift card, or Wally World, or whatever. You can grab them at the checkout, fast and easy, no information exchanged.
Or greenbacks, like you said.
By chance do you know what bank is the handler of these cards? I sense a more sinister plot
This is what's posted on the front page in smaller print at the bottom:
"This Card is issued by GE Money Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. Additional services provided by Green Dot Corporation."
"Getting creative with Keynes
If you really want to stimulate the economy, give out gift cards, or so says Virginia Postrel in the May edition of the Atlantic. And make sure to put a short deadline on it. Otherwise, consumers tend to be "hyperopic" - they put off enjoyment too long and let the card expire. Money quote:
During the stimulus debate, some economists, including Edward Leamer of UCLA, suggested that quickly expiring gift cards might boost the economy more effectively than temporary tax cuts, which people tend to put toward savings. Although you could use a government-issued gift card for groceries you'd buy anyway and bank the savings, people tend to treat gift cards differently. When you get a gift card, Leamer noted, you not only tend to spend it on something you wouldn't otherwise buy, but often wind up spending a bit extra - the perfect prescription for Keynesian stimulus."
http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/financial_crisis/
owned by Latvia...money launderer for World Bank... ;)
didn't take long to put that conspiracy theory together...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2866704516923817439
Is this something that they've just started recently. We bought pre-paid credit cards for the kids and grand-kids for last Christmas and I don't remember needing anything other than a receipt number to activate them. Of course it's possible my memory has failed me due to advancing old age.
TooTall
TooTall...some prepaids have been like this since just after 9/11, others have been switching rapidly since the economic debacle...its all about the money...mine yours and certainly NOT theirs!
Heck , I would just put down some random numbers... they just want a blank filled in...
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