Well here’s something I just found out about. A friend gave me a $100 Visa gift card recently (I know- how lucky am I??) so I used it at a couple places yesterday, putting about $25 on it. I then went to a gas station and put $30 worth of gas on it, and got a receipt showing that.
At that Point I still should have had about $45 worth of credit to use. I made one more stop and the card was declined, saying the amount had been used up! So I got online to check activity on the card and it showed when I used it at the gas station that I had charged $75 worth of gas!
That got me disturbed since I only had $30 in gas in my car so I called the corporate office of that company. A very nice lady there told me that $75 is the maximum amount of gas you can pay for at the pump at their company, so they automatically charge that amount on gift cards up front, when you pay at the pump. Then when the receipt is processed for the actual amount you spent (which happens everyday) the amount you didn’t use is refunded back to the card.
So, supposedly by tomorrow, I will have $45 back on my gift card to be used. So, while it’s no big deal, it’s slightly inconvenient if you have big plans to spend your card that day. As the woman at the gas station corporate office told me, every gas company does that. She also said “Gift cards aren’t very user friendly.” Huh- who would have known?