GiftCardMall Visa Gift Card PIN
GiftCardMall used to be a somewhat decent way to purchase Visa gift cards online to meet minimum spending requirements on credit cards, especially with .5% back from portals. It wasn’t the cheapest or best way, but for a lot of people the simplicity of ordering personalized cards online made it worth it.
Then a couple of months ago GiftCardMall relaunched their entire website and made some huge changes. Among them was lowering the limit on Visa gift cards from $500 down to $250. Thankfully, one of our readers was able to find a backdoor link which is still working to purchase the old cards to this day.
No More PINs?
The other day someone alerted me to language contained within the terms for Visa gift cards on the new GiftCardMall site. This is what the new terms & conditions page says about PINs:
A PIN is a four-digit code that may be used to make purchase transactions instead of signing for your transaction. You will not receive a Personal Identification Number (“PIN”) with your Card Account.
This would seem to indicate that PIN numbers no longer come with these cards. I don’t actually think this is true though. Visa gift cards sold by GiftCardMall are issued by either Metabank or Sunrise Bank. Both banks provide PINs on all of their gift cards. Neither supply a PIN to you, but rather the PIN is the last four digits of the card number. Perhaps that is where the language above comes from.
I know some of you are still using the backdoor links, so I thought I would ask if you have had any issues with PINs on these cards. Specifically I think we should answer:
- Are cards ordered through the backdoor link still pin-enabled?
- Are cards ordered through the new site pin-enabled?
- Is the pin on these cards still the last four digits of the card number?
My Best Guess
My best guess is that all of these cards are still pin-enabled and that the pin is the last four digits, but I just want to confirm for those who are still interested. Feel free to share your recent experiences in the comments and head over to this post for instructions on using the backdoor link along with a portal (read the comments) if you are interested.
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Can anybody confirm that the VGC issued by Sunrise Bank and sold by GiftCardMall comes with a PIN?
I just got Them and they DONT have pins.
Were you able to set a PIN for the card by calling, though?
Shawn,
Frequent Miler has figured out a way to remove the requirement to have comments approved on his blog. You might want to ask him how to do it as that would be a nice improvement.
I should mention that I swiped my Staples Mastercard GCs to load Redbird after I realized all 5 VGCs I had weren’t working, and those worked just fine. My VGCs from Best Buy also worked just fine.
I went to Best Buy yesterday and the guy said they haven’t sold Visa gc for “weeks”. Has anyone else ran into this problem?
Hey Eric. What do you mean? Best Buy not having any left and no restock or you mean they have huge stock and they dont want to sell it to you? Did you visit multiple Best Buys?
The local Best Buy has run out of VGC’s a couple times recently, but i think due to the recent AMEX offer. They always seem to get more in. I never truly believe whatever clerks tell me about inventory as most of the time they actually have no damned idea and just make stuff up to get you to go away instead of saying I do not know and then having you ask them to go find out, which they hate to do.
I also asked about Amazon gc and he was adamant that they no longer sell those. That’s why there’s a chance that they will get more Visa gc in but as I told NinjaX I’m skeptical.
No restock. The guy claimed that they would get more in but I was skeptical as “weeks” is a long time.
Thanks for sharing. I can never seem to find them in Las Vegas Best Buys. I don’t believe they carry them at all.
Thanks for sharing man. Unfortunately, sometimes the key is to drive out somewhere NOT metro and hugely densely populated with MSers. If you go out to a deserted tiny city where people don’t use the internet, you have pretty good luck. Whats stupid is that driving that much is never worth it unless theres another reason. I was in El Centro, CA. omg.. who lives there.. jesus..
El Centro, CA! I was stationed there meself back in 1985. Hotter than crap and a miserable place to be stuck. Phew! I still shudder when I think of how I coulda been stuck there for years if things had not gone differently for me.
Oh ya!? haha! Wow! Glad you got out sir! Sounds like all is well now. Great to hear. My sentiments exactly. Theres a lot of Butt-hole cities in the US, but man.. El Centro! Dude! How do you even get people to populate that city! How is there even a Best Buy there! People just dont give a shit if you are doing anything suspicious there. They could care less because they care more about border patrol if you know what I mean!
Funny you should mention Border Patrol…..
Ended up in Laredo, TX, another craphole, for sure, and eventually on the Northern Border until retirement.
I bought the all-blue-package Staples/OM/OD VGCs. While the smaller glue dot is nice, the sticker covers the card number and leaves a very sticky residue when removed. Anyways, I registered each one on GoWallet online and set the pin for each one as the last 4 digits.
But when I tried to load onto Redbird, I swiped, entered 4 digits, said No to cashback, Yes to put $200 on this card, and then after a few seconds the POS said “Unable to accept. Please contact card issuer.”
I tried the same card at Safeway later, and it worked.
Not sure what’s going on…
I buy at the shopping center, bought last week.
Last 4 numbers are the pin Serve and WM takes them
Yesterday, no problem..
Never set a pin, flush them on the way home.
Further reply for all, and NinjaX.
Yes, I am now waiting for the rest of my GCs purchased to either return to me so I can try and sell them again or whatever. Just too much hassle, too slow and too much risk of losing money which is what has happened to me. Bad enough to pay fees to buy VGC’s so I can get points, but this other stuff? Fuhgeddaboutit!
Hmmm, thanks for pointing this out. Tried to order some gift cards and Giftcardmall cancelled my order. Bank shows pending transaction and Giftcardmall says my information must have been incorrect. Any ideas?
Gift Card Mall sold me Home depot GC a MONTH ago. Never showed up. No refund yet and they say it takes a couple WEEKS to process a refund even though they take your money right away. I would not trust them!
Also, Sent GCs from the last good gas card sale on eBay to Cardpool. They accepted online, sent cards at MY expense with tracking. They called like a week later to confirm stuff and said they were processing a check. A week goes by and I email to ask where and when the check was sent and 2 days later they say their risk assessment team said no and they were sending them back. I wrote back immediately asking that they ship with a tracking number since that is the way I sent them and that they do it promptly as I did. We will see how “prompt” they are and if they use a tracking number.
I have tried the GC thing for the last 2 months but it is TOO much hassle, few companies can be trusted and I am down money because half of them are not good businesses.
Overall, in my opinion Gift card stuff is a pain in the ass unless you have a LOT of money for the float and are VERY patient with companies that are not easy to deal with.
Thanks for this data point Carl. I have been meaning to get into GC reselling and this is EXACTLY what I dont have time for. Shawn even wrote a blog post about how its not worth it for most people. Now I am on the fence.
The same thing happened to me. Cardpool sent mine back and it took over a week to arrive. That’s because they are on the West Coast and I’m on the East Coast. They actually sent it certified so someone had to sign for it which was a pain.
Visited Kate the other day with some Visa gift cards from Staples. Entered the last four digits as the pin and Kate re-asked me for the pin. Set a pin for a different batch of cards and the same thing happened. Had to load via customer service center.
Same thing happened to me JB. When it re-asked for the pin, it wanted a 6 digit pin too.
Can you help me find out what my pin is for my MasterCard
I have found that the BEST thing to do is to do the work and call on each of the cards and MAKE a PIN. I always use the same one and that works fine. I have had MUCH trouble using the last 4 digits of a VGC or MCGC at WM, but calling and setting a PIN ahead of time seems to eliminate a LOT of problems. More work? Yes, but worth it in lieu of headaches!
Very true Carl. I DO NOT TRUST LAST 4 OF A CARD AS THE INITIAL PIN. I ALWAYS SET IT NO MATTER WHAT.
After a few times my card didnt work, I just always set it even if the PIN was initially set as the last 4 of the card number.
Thanks, NinjaX! I found this one out pretty quick. A very few extra minutes has saved me a lot of hassle. The learning curve has been a bit steep at first. I appreciate your deeply thought out and very helpful posts. I just wish I lived in a more MS friendly area! But I am finding being VERY nice to cashiers and such and showing up when it is NOT busy and acknowledging how tough their jobs are helps a lot too!
Also, first time I used Kate, I put the wrong amount that I was going to load and it locked the GC! Even resetting did not work. Turned out all I had to do was call in and talk to a very very friendly and helpful guy who explained how I had gone wrong and he unlocked the card. I would suggest to anyone having hassles with VGCs to use the telephone and be nice and ask for help and they will get it.
I don’t think any MC gc come with a pin. You have to always call to create it. I’ve never had any trouble with Visa gc not working with the last 4 digits. I have never purchased from this site though.