I just returned from my trip to
Disneyland. Trying to purchase my gift cards before I left was a nightmare. I needed to purchase them from Lowes with my Lowes credit card, for reasons I'm not going to go into. I go into my local store and they only have a couple of the variable load cards and very few of any other denomination. So, I pick up some Target GC to finish out the amount needed ($4000). Go to the register, all scan in just fine, try to pay the card keeps getting declined. The cashier looks and says it shows my account has been closed. What??? Head over to customer service. No, the account is not closed, it is locked because of a fraud alert. Talk to the bank, they clear it and say run the order again. Tried $2000 this time, locks it up again. Another call to the bank. $2000 again, goes through, all paid but can't activate most of the cards. Only $500 activated. Refund $1500. Try again. Some activate, refund the rest. After two hours at customer service I left with $700 in Disney GC and $500 Target GC.
Two days later I go to a different Lowes. Try $2000, same thing, the cards won't activate but now the register is locked up. They called someone... come to find out that Lowes has a gift card threshold of $700 every fifteen minutes. This is not per person, but storewide. The sale will go through, but the cards won't activate. So, it took me some time, but I was able to get the rest of my cards by purchasing less than $700 every 15 mins. Then headed to Target to get snarkily informed that I am not allowed to purchase GC with GC. I said I have done it plenty of times. She called a manager and after quite a wait was still told no. Next day, my normal Target. I checked out with some other items I needed also. She took the GC no problem, but the register locked up and couldn't complete the transaction. Manager.., take everything to a new register and it all goes through just fine. My daughter says to the cashier how the other store wouldn't let us use the GC and she said yeah, they are no longer supposed to allow it, but she was letting it slide. And gave me $10 off for the trouble. The self checkouts no longer allow purchase of any gift cards at my local stores.