A recent federal ruling has forced all Visa/MC debit cards, including gift cards, to be allowed to have a PIN set as of April 1, 2013. This allows them to be used for things such as loading of a BlueBird and purchasing Money Orders.
Note that there has been no reported success of using PIN enabled GCs at the post office for MOs. Walmart has a high success rate and other have reported success at their local supermarket.
Visas have been reported to work significantly better than MC at WM registers. MC GC's require pressing a button (quickly) to change the payment type to debit. Without hitting the change payment type button, the cards are recognized as credit and denied.
Detailed steps by slickpokerdealer to use MC GCs at WM registers
Originally documented
here
- Give your blue bird and ask cashier to load $200 (or whatever the MC value is)
- Once the cashier enters the amount, the system (CC Swipe Machine or Pin Pad Machine) will ask for your confirmation on the amount. Confirm that.
- Now swipe your Master Card
- Before the cashier makes the move, you have to press the "cancel" button on the display screen. That's the trick. You will have just a second or two to react. So, be ready to press "cancel" as soon as you swipe your mastercard gift card. If you have new swipe machine, it might show you "change payment" along with "cancel" option. In this case, try "change payment".
- Now it will show you the option to choose "ATM/Debit" and the system will run it as a debit and will immediately prompt you to enter the pin.
- Key in the PIN you would have set for your MC (I always call and set the pin number in advance) and press "Enter" or "Ok" on keypad
- Transaction will be approved
One particular MC GC has given several members issues and should be avoided. It is the Celebrate card isued by US Bank. While the PIN can be set, it is consistently denied by WM registers. It can be seen here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/20970219-post1788.html
Setting PINS
- Visa issued by US Bank - Must call in to set the PIN
- Visa issued by MetaBank - Use the last four digits of the card number
- Vanilla Visa and OneVanilla (not MyVanilla, etc) - Use any random four digits on the first transaction which sets the PIN
- MC issued by US Bank - Must call to set PIN
For Vanilla Visa, wait an hour after you purchase to use the card. Otherwise, you will get a redemption error.
One other note: When splitting transactions among multiple cards at a Walmart register for billpay, money orders, bluebird, etc., make sure you have the cashier hit the debit button on their keypad (with actual keys). If they hit debit button on the touchscreen, it will not work. I am not sure why, but I have had this problem several times. If your transaction got declined, try having the cashier hit 'Debit' using the physical keypad on the right of the screen.
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