Bought $20 prepaid Visa as a gift...hit with $7.95 Activation Fee

[ChrisFL]

Went to Publix to get a last minute additional gift for a friend of mine, figured a Visa card is easy as you can use it for anything, so I asked for $20 and then they rang it up and it had a $7.95 activation fee.

Is it just me or is that crazy?

I'm pretty sure I don't get that big of a fee when I get other types of gift cards for restaurants, etc.

 

[hardcorestitch]

Gawrsh that’s rough! Hope you find a solution.

 

[Turn the Page]

I will say having worked at a location that accepts Visa gift cards as a form of payment they are a pain in the butt to use. I won't buy them for anyone.

 

[gmi3804]

Activation fees are pretty standard for Visa cards.

 

[disneychrista]

Most Visa type gift cards have this type of activation fee.

 

[citruscurtis]

Paid it for homeless son .... usually send a package that costs $14.00 in postage....so I didn't flinch

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

They've always been like that, an activation fee on a visa gift card has been the norm for decades (I got them a lot in the past).

The packaging notes the activation fee and merchants can add their own on there. The amount purchased is more likely to have a $2.95 fee and the rest could be the merchant tagging on more.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I will say having worked at a location that accepts Visa gift cards as a form of payment they are a pain in the butt to use. I won't buy them for anyone.

I loved them because it gave me the freedom to purchase from a lot of different places. People would give me gift cards for places I don't shop at, that's not useful in the least, the Visa gift card allowed me to go where I wanted in general. But I was also getting Visa gift cards during a time period where normal store credit cards could expire or have dormant fees, etc. Nowadays because of the laws that changed I could wait several years for a random place I got a gift card at if I had to. It took us 4 years to get rid of several hundred dollars worth Target gift cards given to us for our wedding for example because we didn't shop there at that time, we swapped (back when you could) them for Disney gift cards instead. A Visa gift card would have been preferable to the Target gift cards.

But I do agree using the card and ringing up the card as a cashier was not the easiest. You needed to know the value of the card on it and it could decline the card if the cashier didn't enter the exact amount then ring for that which would then give you the left over balance if there was one to pay with another form of payment. We ran into that a lot at DSW.

In this case I would only buy for someone who asks for it, presumably or at least hopefully they know the cons with it.

 

[goofyernmost]

An outside retailer (store like Publics or any other has to pay Visa/MC or whatever the face value because the card represents that amount of cash power. The activation fee is the amount that the stores add in for profit. Once activated the store must pay the vendor the $50.00 and the rest is kept because that location made the sale. It's the only way it can work. The vendor then has to honor the $50.00 when the purchaser buys something with it. Just like when you buy something from Amazon and the value isn't high enough to cover delivery costs, that charge you at the time of purchase.

The activation fees usually remain the same no matter the size of the card because the cost is figured on how much space the venue. Stores work on very small profit margins and in order to stay in business that's what they need to charge. If you buy a gift card from restaurants or businesses direct they may have room to charge less because it comes out of what it cost for the product you may be purchasing. There is wiggle room, when it is just a cash card a dollar is a dollar, there is no room to negotiate. If you want to gift someone $20.00 going to the bank and taking out a $20.00 bill and it cost you absolutely nothing and on top of that it will purchase the same amount for the gift recipient. Why do we do it? Because it is more convenient. Convenience is never free.