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| Gift2go Cards Are Bogus |
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| Tell your horror story about debit cards and holds |
| Beware! Beware! Beware! Beware!
Beware! You may have seen gift cards offered at many retailers. Some of these have quirks that will reduce their value or even make your money unavailable to you when merchants place a verification or authorization charge on them which does not automatically get credited at the time of transaction termination. Gift2go is provided by the Marshell Bank and managed by IDT financial services. Merchants are placing charges on your cards that go beyond the value of the sale. Some charges won't be removed for as many as 30 days. A blog is available http://geocities.com/dhlndsign/blog.html so you can tell your horror stories about debit cards and gift cards. Avoid gift2go cards if you have any desire to have control over the money that is available to you. It all started at Hampton Inns when they placed an authorization charge on a card an then didn't remove the charge when I checked out. No charges or indication of an authorization charge were represented on the room bill. According to the fine print on the room bill, "if a credit/bebit card is linked to a bank account, a hold will be placed.... including estimated incidentals and such funds will not be released for 72 business hours from the date of check-out or longer at the discretion of your financial institution." Well to tell the rest of the story is to say that after numerous phone calles to the hotel and their parent company nothing was done to release the hold. I had to wait the full 30 days to get those funds released. I haven't used the card since and wouldn't pay for a room at that hotel chain, or its parent company. Why should we do business with companies that are insensitive to our circumstances, not to mention slipping it to us in the fine print. There are a number of other cards out there but you've got to watch their trickery. Vanillia visa was ok but they've made some changes in charging a service fee after 7 months. To check your balance they have a web site but lately i have been unable to view it with Internet explorer 6.0. That could bring up a whole nother subject on the rudeness associated with phasing out the use of older browsers. The first thing that will go in the trash when needed will be my computer. The direction that the newbies are taking the internet is not worth the effort, but that is another subject. Say no to digital, buy used, pay cash, avoid the entrapments of the beast. All access charges 50 cents for every time you call their automated system to check your balance, what is up with that. They deserve the big bogus star of the year for that one. I'll be avoiding them too. |
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