Warning about DVA

[SteveW8002]

I have the good fortune of being able to use a credit card for work purchases; then being able to use the points for travel. Well I thought that I had a great idea to indirectly use the points to purchase park tickets for my families upcoming trip in December.

The cc has an option to convert the points to Target gift cards, which I did. I then purchased Disney gift cards with them. I wanted to consolidate the Disney cards so I enrolled in the Disney Vacation Account, because it lets you add $ to the account via Disney gift cards. Well this morning I started entering the cards one at a time. All went well until on the 11th card I got an "error processing please try again later" message. I closed out of the account and tried it again; this time it told me that there was insufficient funds on the card. I stupidly tried another card and the same thing happened.

I then called the DVA number and explained the problem. I won't bore you with a blow by blow, however it took me about an hour and being transferred to 4 different people before I could taklk to someone who even had an idea how to help. She checked the balance on the cards and sure enough it was $0. I also had her check my remaining cards and they were fine. The cm suggested that the cards were never activated at the store, which I find doubtful. The recipt says they were all activated.

I think the DSA wiped the cards without adding the amount to my account. I'll check with Target but I am doubtful that they will be able to do anything. I will never use this service again. Be careful when using the DSA.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Oh that's awful! So far I'm not hearing a lot of positive about the DVA. Hindsight is always 20/20 but it would have easier to just buy tickets, hotel, etc with the Disney gift cards.

There is a way to prove it though. When you log in to look up your gift card balance, it will show the date the card was activated and it will list all transactions. Since the DVA and gift card are both owned by Disney, it should be possible to track down what happened. It's not like you're trying to get 2 different companies to come to an agreement.
I would print out the gc transactions, scan them into my computer, then call DVA, ask for a manager, and offer to email or fax copies of your gc transactions and receipts that they were indeed activated.
If you get no where with this, I would be, at a bare minimum, writing a scathing letter to DVA expressing how disappointing it was to deal with them, how you tell everyone to avoid them, etc and name the manager who you spoke with on the phone.
It may not fix your problem but at least you tried and can get it off your chest that you did all you could to fix it.

Good luck!

 

[momto4obkids]

Oh wow! That stinks!

I have entered 41 gift cards so far with no problems into my DVA.

It is entirely possible it wasn't activated, it's happened before with gift cards.

Hopefully you get it all resolved.

 

[SteveW8002]

Wow thanks so much for the look up suggestion. I did and found that the cards were actually not activated. I printed it off and will be taking them back to target. I find it strange because they do all say that they were activated on the recipt. I'm going to be using this look up site on all of my disney gift cards from now on. Does this happen often?

I'm still staying away from the DVA. It makes me nervous that most of the cm' shad no clue what it even is.

Thanks again!!!

 

[Bektasmic]

I had a similar problem and it turned out it was because you can only enter 5 cards a day. When I tried the card the next day it worked fine. I'm sorry your card wasn't activated, but in case anyone else experiences problems, maybe see if it works next day like mine did. It was scary when it told me the card didn't work :-(

 

[Laulani]

I bought $2500 worth in GCs at Target today and I have only entered $500 so far I have had 3 of the GCs do exactly what you described. I think it is absolutely terrible and they should have some kind of procedure in place to take care of such an issue. I just lost $150 by using this account. and now I am afraid to enter the 30 something cards I have left. I also called card services and they confirmed that the cards were active and that due to a $50 transaction each card has a balance of ZERO. I am so disappointed and very angry. I came here to see if anyone has dealt with this and had the DVA people actually resolve the issue? So not a happy camper.

 

[nat8199]

Over the last few months I have entered 89 gift cards into my DVA, all bought through target.com, and I haven't had a single problem with any of them. I don't think this is DVA's fault. In other threads I have read lots of people have had cards that were never activated, I am just lucky it hasn't happened to me yet.

 

[scottmel]

I become a huge proponent of this system last month and love it b/c I am a chronic gift card purchaser. Same thing happened to me but in my guess I just went to the Disney gift card system checked the balance, yet card was activiated, yep card redeemed by DVA. Logged BACK into DVA and balance was correct eventhough it gave me the error message earlier. the proof to you, target, dva is what the screen says when you do a card look up. Right there tells you if target never activated card and reight there tells you if DVA took the funds or not. Very easy.

Thanks for the tip on the max of 5 cards a day. I didn't know this. I have had several people give me Disney gift cards etc etc. and this is a great way to keep track of the funds. I love it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Wow thanks so much for the look up suggestion. I did and found that the cards were actually not activated. I printed it off and will be taking them back to target. I find it strange because they do all say that they were activated on the recipt. I'm going to be using this look up site on all of my disney gift cards from now on. Does this happen often?

I'm still staying away from the DVA. It makes me nervous that most of the cm' shad no clue what it even is.

Thanks again!!!

Maybe I'm just anal but any time I get a gift card I always verify the balance before I give it and save the activation receipt and give it to the recipient.
Same with store credits, etc. My job requires such attention to detail, and I have made errors, that I have turned into a lunatic double-checker.

 

[nunzia]

I have the good fortune of being able to use a credit card for work purchases; then being able to use the points for travel. Well I thought that I had a great idea to indirectly use the points to purchase park tickets for my families upcoming trip in December.

The cc has an option to convert the points to Target gift cards, which I did. I then purchased Disney gift cards with them. I wanted to consolidate the Disney cards so I enrolled in the Disney Vacation Account, because it lets you add $ to the account via Disney gift cards. Well this morning I started entering the cards one at a time. All went well until on the 11th card I got an "error processing please try again later" message. I closed out of the account and tried it again; this time it told me that there was insufficient funds on the card. I stupidly tried another card and the same thing happened.

I then called the DVA number and explained the problem. I won't bore you with a blow by blow, however it took me about an hour and being transferred to 4 different people before I could taklk to someone who even had an idea how to help. She checked the balance on the cards and sure enough it was $0. I also had her check my remaining cards and they were fine. The cm suggested that the cards were never activated at the store, which I find doubtful. The recipt says they were all activated.

I think the DSA wiped the cards without adding the amount to my account. I'll check with Target but I am doubtful that they will be able to do anything. I will never use this service again. Be careful when using the DSA.

Well, it could certainly be DVA, but I had a nightmare scenario of Target Disney GC not being activated...10 of them..and it was crazy trying to get that fixed. Some could never be fixed, even though they read as activated, and after about 6 months of calls to both companies and way too many discussions with people in India who refused to give you a manager EVERY TIME you called even when you referred the incidident number and the folks in India who EVERY TIME transferred you the wrong person and then back to another person who had to have it all explained AGAIN, on and on...Target finally gave me an account credit some of them. I will never buy Disney Gift cards at Target again.

 

[disfanforlife]

Where can you look to see if they are activated?

 

[scottmel]

Well, it could certainly be DVA, but I had a nightmare scenario of Target Disney GC not being activated...10 of them..and it was crazy trying to get that fixed. Some could never be fixed, even though they read as activated, and after about 6 months of calls to both companies and way too many discussions with people in India who refused to give you a manager EVERY TIME you called even when you referred the incidident number and the folks in India who EVERY TIME transferred you the wrong person and then back to another person who had to have it all explained AGAIN, on and on...Target finally gave me an account credit some of them. I will never buy Disney Gift cards at Target again.

THIS is why I love DVA. For the last 6 years I went to Disney with thousands of gift cards in my purse and each time I would swipe one or turn one in I would worry what if it doesn't work? Yes I verified balances before the trip on the big 500 ones etc. but still it worried me.

So now with the DVA I know immediately it works, is deposited and I keep ALL OLD gift cards in an envelope with the most current screen shot of the DVA. This way if something goes wrong I know it is Disney as the proof it was accepted etc. and activated had been verified. It will be nice before my trip to call in one big gift card instead of plowing thru 50 of them on the phone with the CM

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

Thanks OP for your experience and I'm sure it was very frustrating for you!

To offer another *positive* side to the DV account - so far I love it! I've had mine open for over 4 months now and have had no issues. I wanted to mention, I've also entered more than 5 at at time, with no issues. Every blue moon I might get an error message after I enter one, but I just hit enter or more forward (whatever it is) and it's there and it just seems to have a hiccup. I also highly suggest verifying online through Disney the activation, as mentioned by others.

It seems in my research and reading the majority of the issues happen from the gift cards not being activated. So far I haven't had this issue and I've bought at Target and online at Target but I know it's likely just luck. I'm sure it's a pain and dread the day it *might* happen to me.

Like others, this is so much better for me as I use Costco for DCL and before I would have to call in each Disney gift card to Costco, who then turned around and had to call DCL to apply them individually so it took time. I tried to do no more than 10-20 at a time. Now, I enter the gift cards online to the DV account at my leisure, they are all consolidated, I have *one* number to then give to DCL directly when I need to apply a payment and heck, I earn $20 for every $1000 - not bad in my opinion.

My experience with DCL has been fine so far - I call the specified number for DV account payments and simply tell them I'm applying a payment from my DV account. To them I understand it reads as a gift card and they use a dummy exp date which once I had to remind them about and she giggled and said oh yeah.

I'll keep plugging along and hopefully for those that have had issues it will get better, not worse! :

Heather

 

[luvthemouse71]

Yes!! This happened to me this week on Thursday! Like you, I found the DVA phone rep to be very unhelpful. She kept telling me to go back to the place where I purchased the card. I kept telling her that there was money on the card, but when I tried to put it into the DVA website, it gave an error message. However, the money had been taken out, per the Disney Gift Card site. This happened with the third card.

I was upset. $500 was missing. What I ended up doing was calling the Disney Gift Card number.( the one on the back of the card) That rep was awesome. When I looked under the "check your balance" part of the site, it said that the card had been redeemed, with a time stamp, but the DVA website had "lost" the transaction. She was even able to get into the DVA and see my account, someting that the DVA people said was impossible.

It was fixed finally. Very frustrating though. The DGC lady asked if DVA lady suggested I call them, and I told her no, that they kept insisting it was the place where I bought the card. DGC lady herself told me that wasn't the issue, it was the DVA website.

OP, thanks for posting about this.

 

[lauradis]

I wanted a Disney Vacation Account when they first came out.

Looked so cool and reward too sweet.

But held off because all of the negative comments on the disboard.

So I can't speak for the DVA, but my experience with buying gift cards at local store has been great except one card didn't get activated.

Thank goodness I'm crazy and keep all the card and receipts, till after a vacation.

Local store just refund my money into store credit, voided out gift card and I got a new gift card with the store credit.

Everyone please use website on the back of disney giftcard, before leaving home to check balances.

 

[mamommy]

Yes!! This happened to me this week on Thursday! Like you, I found the DVA phone rep to be very unhelpful. She kept telling me to go back to the place where I purchased the card. I kept telling her that there was money on the card, but when I tried to put it into the DVA website, it gave an error message. However, the money had been taken out, per the Disney Gift Card site. This happened with the third card.

I was upset. $500 was missing. What I ended up doing was calling the Disney Gift Card number.( the one on the back of the card) That rep was awesome. When I looked under the "check your balance" part of the site, it said that the card had been redeemed, with a time stamp, but the DVA website had "lost" the transaction. She was even able to get into the DVA and see my account, someting that the DVA people said was impossible.

It was fixed finally. Very frustrating though. The DGC lady asked if DVA lady suggested I call them, and I told her no, that they kept insisting it was the place where I bought the card. DGC lady herself told me that wasn't the issue, it was the DVA website.

OP, thanks for posting about this.

I had the same thing happen on Thursday last week as well! The website was pretty glitchy, so I'm guessing they are having an issue with it. I emailed DVA support and haven't heard back yet. Thanks for the tip on calling the Disney Gift Card number. I'll try that if I don't get anywhere with DVA.

For the record - I checked the balance on the card. It clearly showed the card was activated with a $50 balance on a prior date and the $50 being deducted on Thursday afternoon. Then showed the 3 subsequent attempts I made to deposit the gift card with a $0 balance. I had applied 8 other gift cards that afternoon with no issue, so whoever said there was a limit of 5 is mistaken.

 

[3boymthr]

I have had issues with GC at Target. Mostly this is with Target store cards. I get the card and my receipt says it's activated and I go to use it and there's nothing on it. But comparing numbers the number on the card doesn't always match the card on the receipt. Yup, the cashier is switching the cards and keeping the activated card. Checking the balance online shows that the card was filled and emptied. So of course, I can't prove it because they just say I must be using the wrong card, the one that I already used.

 

[SUSIEQ]

I have had issues with GC at Target. Mostly this is with Target store cards. I get the card and my receipt says it's activated and I go to use it and there's nothing on it. But comparing numbers the number on the card doesn't always match the card on the receipt. Yup, the cashier is switching the cards and keeping the activated card. Checking the balance online shows that the card was filled and emptied. So of course, I can't prove it because they just say I must be using the wrong card, the one that I already used.

I have had this same thing happen to me with a Target gift card. I know the cashier pocketed my gift card and gave me one with no $ on it!

 

[disfanforlife]

I have had issues with GC at Target. Mostly this is with Target store cards. I get the card and my receipt says it's activated and I go to use it and there's nothing on it. But comparing numbers the number on the card doesn't always match the card on the receipt. Yup, the cashier is switching the cards and keeping the activated card. Checking the balance online shows that the card was filled and emptied. So of course, I can't prove it because they just say I must be using the wrong card, the one that I already used.

Eeeks, I have some I bought quite awhile ago. I think I better go check the balances on all of them. That is pretty nervy though. The cashier would have to have some of the gift cards there at the register to switch out. And if you are watching while they ring you up - I would assume that would be hard to do.

 

[SteveW8002]

Oh that's awful! So far I'm not hearing a lot of positive about the DVA. Hindsight is always 20/20 but it would have easier to just buy tickets, hotel, etc with the Disney gift cards.

There is a way to prove it though. When you log in to look up your gift card b, it will show the date the card was activated and it will list all transactions. Since the DVA and gift card are both owned by Disney, it should be possible to track down what happened. It's not like you're trying to get 2 different companies to come to an agreement.
I would print out the gc transactions, scan them into my computer, then call DVA, ask for a manager, and offer to email or fax copies of your gc transactions and receipts that they were indeed activated.
If you get no where with this, I would be, at a bare minimum, writing a scathing letter to DVA expressing how disappointing it was to deal with them, how you tell everyone to avoid them, etc and name the manager who you spoke with on the phone.
It may not fix your problem but at least you tried and can get it off your chest that you did all you could to fix it.

Good luck!

I have an update to the story. It turns out that only 1 of the cards was not activated; the other was. So the DVA wiped the card and never applied the $. I spoke with a gift card representative, and although he didn't admit that there is a problem, he knew exactly what I was talking about. He took down all of my information and said that he will rectify the problem. I'm hopeful that it will get fixed.

Unfortunately this has ruined my confidence in the DVA. When my issue gets fixed I'll close it out and won't use it again until all of the bugs are worked out. It's to bad because it would be a great way to consolidate all of those gift cards. I guess I'll have to go back to the old way of reading them off 1 by 1 to a cm.

Be careful with the DVA guys. We all work to hard to save $ for Disney only to have a website lose it!