Same here but for the second reason only
[VIC, TAS] 10% off $100/$250 Vanilla VISA Gift Cards (Incl. $5.95/$7.50 Activation Fee) When You Scan Registered Flybuys @ Coles » All Comments
Also much easier to use.
Just back to few weeks before Coles had selling the digital only Prepaid MasterCard with the similar deal online.
Haven't used it for 12+months, I wonder if this Vanilla card still requires signature on (almost) every in-store purchase.
If so, I will just pass and wait for the next Coles Prepaid Mastercard deal.
It's just soooo annoying. Staff never understand it's a gift card hence it's not my name printed on the card.Could be wrong but I think it depends on the merchant and also the dollar amount of your purchase…not dependant on the card itself.
No, from a March 2023 comment, it's $30+ in Coles and $1+ in WW, for this particular gift card.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/13522601/redir
From my previous experience (12+ months ago), it was 100% of the time, even just a few dollars in maccas, which is different from Coles Prepaid.
Ues a pin on firsttransaction, no need to sign from then on
.
@Nugs: You are talking about Coles Mastercard gift cards. This deal is for Vanilla Visa gift cards, which is a different prepaid gift card scheme.
Vanilla Visa gift cards and Coles Mastercard gift cards are quite similar (e.g. they are both operated by InComm, they have similar packaging style), but one of the key differences is the PIN.
Glad this happens so frequently now that there is no need to go crazy for it anymore. Especially with various bills already prepaid enough with previous deals.
How? What bills? More info please
Utilities and tax prepaid online. I also paid the dentist and doctor in person.
I tried to pay my yarra valley bill online and it wont accept it :(
@dealsucker: I have paid Yarra Valley numerous times with the Coles Mastercard. Strange that it does not work with this one.
@dealsucker: I just paid my YVW bill using vanilla after my payment for tango energy failed, so YMMV.
@dealsucker: I had the same issue trying online, called up and used their phone CC payment and went through.
Any differences between these and the Coles PP MasterCards?
Can this be used to pay the ATO online in the same way the Coles MasterCard one can?
Yes it works
Thanks!
These visas attract double the ATO's credit card fee though (0.40% compared to 0.20% for the Coles MasterCard).
True but it's not a big deal considering you are getting a 7.3% discount on the gift card.
Thanks. There were a couple comments from the last thread back in March suggesting these can't be used to pay HECS (and repayments are via the ATO site anyhow).
I read through your detailed info below (thanks), but didn't spot anything other than ATO payments should be fine. Wondering if you know more?
I my tax is not ready for this year yet, but I can see I own them. Can I pay now without logde my tax?
You can make payments in advance to the ATO.
Can you put this onto paypal?
Yes
Could you share how to put it onto PayPal please? Thanks
Anyone figure out if we can load several of these onto PayPal and use it for one transaction?
Real lucky people are those living in Albury and Wodonga… !
Even luckier/wealthier are those living in Sydney and Melbourne.
Why no love for NSW?
March next year
Only have 5 left.
Need another 10k lol
Fly to VIC?
I think other states tend to get the same deal a week or two later. Not sure why it is staggered like that but maybe to reduce the strain on the gift card system when activations are being done?
I just asked my friend to buy it for me.
Send me the photos of the front and back of the activated card together with the receipts. As an exemplary tax agent I will do my due diligence to process your payment as fast as governmental bureaucracy allows which might take an eternity. Please do not attempt to contact me or the ATO as doing so will lengthen the process and you're not gonna see your money again anyway.
Wonderful
@WookieMonster notes
These prepaid gift cards have no PIN associated with them.
These prepaid gift cards do not come with a PIN at all when they are manufactured, and it is not possible to set a PIN after activation for card-present (i.e. in-person) purchases.
If you are going to use this prepaid gift card in person, you will likely need to sign to “verify” the transaction. If you swipe the prepaid gift card on the EFTPOS terminal are asked to enter a PIN, press the Enter / OK / green key without entering anything, or press the Signature option on the screen (if that appears as an option).
Although signature verification was phased out for Australian-issued debit and credit cards in late 2014, there still some circumstances where signature verification is still permitted in Australia, including magnetic stripe payments (which covers Vanilla Visa gift cards).
However, if you are at a merchant that mandates you provide a PIN to authorise an in-person transaction, you will not be able to use this prepaid gift card.
These prepaid gift cards are not accepted at some online merchants
Merchants that do not accept these prepaid gift cards include Prezzee, Reward Gateway and the Woolworths Group gift card portal.
This is due to prepaid gift cards not being tied to a specific person and lacking the security features that allow a payment processor to ask for verification (e.g. a two-factor authentication code sent to a mobile or obtained from a token to check whether the verified cardholder is the person trying to initiate the payment).
A workaround is to link these prepaid gift cards to a PayPal account, then use PayPal at an online merchant (where PayPal is accepted) and select the prepaid gift card as the payment source. I have done this many times at Prezzee and the Woolworths Group gift card portal to get around their restrictions on prepaid gift cards.
Before anyone asks, these gift cards should be okay to use to to send payments to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) online. (I last used a Vanilla Visa gift card to on the ATO portal at the end of 2022.) These prepaid gift cards attract a 0.4% payment surcharge and ATO’s systems will only permit you to redeem ten different prepaid gift cards in a 12-24 hour period (five via myGov and five via Government EasyPay(governmenteasypay.gov.au), so remember to factor this in when planning to send any payments.
These prepaid gift cards are (particularly) susceptible to BIN attacks (aka “hacks”)
Although any Visa/Mastercard/AMEX/etc card is susceptible to bank identification number (BIN) attacks (where someone tests multiple potential combinations of card numbers, expiry dates and CVV2 values), prepaid gift cards are particularly susceptible, due to a limited pool of potential expiry dates, as well as the lack of sophisticated fraud prevention and fraud detection systems you usually find implemented at “regular” financial institutions (e.g. CommBank, Westpac, AMEX).
If you notice someone manages to redeem part or all of the balance of your prepaid gift card, you can dispute transactions(vanillabalance.com) with the issuer (Heritage Bank).
You may have up to 120% of a transaction value deducted from your prepaid gift card
Some merchants will request a pre-authorisation amount that is up to 120% of the transaction value. However, when the transaction is no longer pending, the amount deducted from your prepaid gift card will be settled at the transaction amount, and the additional funds set aside to cover the pre-authorisation amount will be returned the available balance.
I have noticed this happen at hairdressers and restaurants, and the terms and conditions also mention this potentially happening at hotels, rental car place, etc.
This means that you may not be able to redeem your prepaid gift card at some merchants, even though you think it has a sufficient available balance. For example, I once tried to use a Vanilla Visa gift card with $34 on it to pay for a $30 meal at a restaurant, but the card kept on being declined. The card issuer later told me it was due to the restaurant wanting to use $36 as the pre-authorisation amount (not $30), so my transactions were being declined due to insufficient available balance.
Reference: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/13518831/redir
Thanks for that. Have an up vote.
Sounds like a major hassle and might pass on this.
I regularly use 10 GC on myGov and five at Government EasyPay(governmenteasypay.gov.au) at a time. You can repeat it every 12 hours.
Just be careful if your tax account is already in credit. You may not get the credit refunded to you even after doing tax return. I called ATO to ask why there was a "Cancellation of refund" for the credit I put in a few months ago. They said they would escalate the matter for a senior manager to investigate. Still haven't received my money yet.
Need a letter from your accountant
Did you get an answer for this? Also have a Cancellation of refund in my account but haven't contacted ATO yet for an explanation.
Some merchants will request a pre-authorisation amount that is up to 120% of the transaction value
Is this legal? If this is, it shouldn't be
Can these be used on Amazon?
Yep
All my Amazon transactions keep getting cancelled with these prepaid cards (both Vanilla VISA & Coles Mastercard GC). I've noticed a change on the Amazon website which now seems to be doing the 3DS verification on cards. Now been using these to buy Amazon GC, then pay for my purchases.
Can I use these card to buy Amazon GC then use the balance to buy Apple gift card?
@daoddv: You could just use them on Paypal to buy 15% off Ultimate GCs and then convert those to Apple at JB HiFi.
Can these be quickly & cheaply liquidated to WW or Coles GCs?
If you buy prezzee, then yes.
Not sure about othersIt has to be with PayPal, not directly.
You sure. Ive used these with prezzee a while back
I just tried with PP still rejected : (
Good timing if you plan to get any new Apple products that will be announced early Wednesday this week.
IE.go to JB-Hi Fi to get Apple Gift Cards to add to your Apple Account and to purchase the new products online via the Apple Store app.Donno if this deal or the Ultimate Cards deal by Woolies worth for more value as they are doing with 20x EDR points deal?
If you use your EDR points as rewards dollars ie 2000 points = $10 off. Then 20x EDR points is equivalent to 10% off.
but you could always buy Woollies card with at least 3-5% off
Isn't this the one that's not accepted at many places?
Probably.
As discussed above, if you are wanting to do a card-present transaction, the only verification option available on this gift card is signature verification. If you swipe the gift card, select CR/Credit (where requested) and are then greeted with the PIN prompt screen, you must:
- Press Enter/OK without entering any numbers, or
- Select the Signature verification option on the EFTPOS terminal. (I have only seen this at EFTPOS terminals operated by the Westpac Group.)
If the merchant refuses to let you do signature verification for a card-present transaction, you will not be able to use the gift card. Signature verification is still a permitted verification method for card-present transactions across the world, but it was phased out for the vast majority of situations in Australia in 2014. Considering how unusual it is nowadays to be able to do signature verification in Australia nowadays, it means that you may have a merchant refuse signature verification due to it being something they have never seen before.
There will be some situations where an EFTPOS terminal will attempt to redeem funds on the gift card without asking for a signature (e.g. parking meters, transactions at Coles where you are attempting to redeem less than ~$35), so signature verification is not always required. Woolworths, Woolworths Metro, BIG W, BWS, Dan Murphy’s and EG Ampol are unusual in that they will push you through the signature verification process without actually asking for you to provide an actual signature.1 As an aside, I have always been asked for a PIN or signature for card-present refund transactions, even for very low value refund transactions.
In terms of online transactions, in my experience, it is more likely a prepaid Visa gift card will be rejected than a prepaid Mastercard gift card. For example, I have always been able to use Coles Mastercard gift cards on Cashrewards’ gift card portal, but I have tried multiple types of prepaid Visa gift cards without any success (e.g. Activ Visa gift card, Go-To Visa gift card, OnlyONE Visa gift card, Vanilla Visa gift card). However, you should be fine linking a Vanilla Visa gift card to PayPal and then using that via PayPal to pay for an online transaction (where PayPal is accepted). A lot of the restrictions you may have heard about with Coles Mastercard gift cards (e.g. PayPal transactions being blocked, the ATO being blocked, health insurance premium payments being blocked) were never actually an issue for Vanilla Visa gift cards.
-
I have seen someone at Woolworths being forced to provide a signature earlier this year, but I suspect that was for an internationally-issued card, not an Australian-issued prepaid gift card. ↩
Not having much confidence in buying this gift card to pay for my car service with my mechanic. I'm worried that he might not accept signature
I doubt you will have problems. Small merchants with normal EFTPOS machines usually won't have a problem. It's bigger merchants who have customised their machines for things like self checkouts or train tickets or vending machines etc where you may have problems.
@WookieMonster do you know if these still work at Prezzee via PayPal? Didn't work for me - "Unfortunately , your order was unsuccessful due to payment assessment from our processor…..".PayPal does send an email saying "You authorized a payment to Prezzee Pty Limited".
No idea! I don’t have any Vanilla Visa gift cards on hand to test.
I bought a bunch of these, and can confirm they are denied at a few places i'm trying, Legoland, and big goose farm, not sure why. I managed to pay some bills with them though.
Does anyone know if you can pay council rates with these cards?
Yes, I've done it for City of Melbourne.
Thanks for confirming, will give it a go for my council
Yes.. have done it in the past
Never bought these vanilla cards before, anyone know if you can purchase them with Shopbacks Supermarket card or the coles mastercards?
Shopbacks Supermarket card
I have not heard of Coles restricting the usage of ShopBack Supermarket Visa gift cards at their stores, so you should be fine from that perspective.
Keep in mind that Blackhawk Network has been enforcing spending restrictions on their gift cards - including ShopBack Supermarket Visa gift cards - at “supermarkets” for a number of months now. Have a look here if you want to know more.
coles mastercards
I am assuming you are talking about physical Coles Mastercard gift cards, not digital Coles Mastercard gift cards nor Coles Mastercard credit cards? If so…
I was able to use a physical Coles Mastercard gift card to pay for a Vanilla Visa gift card in last year’s VIC/TAS deal,, but someone told me a couple of days later that they triggered an Invalid Product Mix error as soon as they swiped a physical Coles Mastercard gift card. I did not have any physical Coles Mastercard gift cards to test it out during this year’s NSW/ACT deal…
Thanks, did read a previous post here on Vanilla cards and couldn't find an answer.
And yes my bad, coles MC is too generic, I did mean the physical Coles giftcard MC's.
As expected, the Coles Mastercard giftcard did not work paying for one of these Vanilla cards.
I was able to add 5 cards to shopback and proceeded to purchase Airbnb gift cards. Successful on 4 but the 5th failed, said SB detected suspicious activity and blocked it.
I removed the 5th card and now unable to add anymore, says that I can't add anymore from this card issuer.You should still be able to add "different" types of cards, example I cannot add Coles Mastercard gift cards at the moment but I can add Single Use Zip cards and others, it is a 7 day cooldown period, after 7 days you'll be able to add the type of card your using again.
There is 2 types of cooldowns at Shopback, inability to add cards, and another that stops you buying giftcards, I can buy small $5 gift cards but cannot buy $200 or above Supermarket cards, not sure how long that cooldown period is.
How's Qantas' review? People still fly with it.
this may have been answered before but wondering if i can purchase Ultimate sale which will start on 13th with these ? ANy clue or tips?
Also, how do i use it with paypal? Can i do a bulk load of maybe 4X $250 cards and load my paypal to a $1000 and buy something at once or will i have to purchase stuff worth $250 each time seperately?
Thanks
i dont see how you do it
cant buy Ultimate, tried this morning and getting no enough balance error with $250 payment or $200 payment
You can only use one card each time with Paypal. If it exceeds $250, you can use this Vanilla VISA gift card to buy a store gift card first.
Has anyone tried buying a $250 gift card (or any gift card for that matter) using a HSBC Everyday Global Account with the 2% cashback offering. Are you able to use split card payment for gift cards at Coles to get under the $100 tap threshold for the 2% cashback i.e $99, $70, $81.
At Coles self checkouts, you cannot do split payments across multiple cards when purchasing a gift card. If you press the Mixed Payment option on the payment screen, you will get an error message telling you to go to the service desk to do split payments. I think you can still do split payments between cash and one card payment, but if so:
You would need to insert cash first.
There will be no option to obtain change from the cash you insert. That means if you are purchasing a $250 Vanilla Visa gift card for $231.75 through this deal and insert $135 cash first, you would then need to pay $96.75 from a card. There is no way to force the checkout to give you back $3.20 in change and then pay $99.95 from a card (which sounds like the ideal scenario for you).
At Coles standard checkouts (which includes the service desk and any checkout that is operated by a dedicated staff member), you can do split payments across multiple cards (or multiple cards and then cash) when purchasing a gift card, but that is dependent on:
The staff member knowing how to do split payments (and I have found out the hard way a couple of times that not all staff know how to do that).
The staff member being willing to let you do split payments (and I have found out the hard way a couple of times that not all staff will do this for purchases of gift cards).
I've just tried this exactly and the system didn't allow split payment. Asked a guy there and he tried log-in, didn't work neither. And he told me per the message my best bet would be trying to pay it as a whole payment for each gift card. Problem was my Shopback Visa Card was only $200 while I'm purchasing $250 vanilla cards.
Ended up paying by my credit card. On my way back, I thought to myself that I should have tried purchase a bunch of spring onion along with 5x Vanilla gift cards, the system might allow me to split payments. I'll try again tomorrow. I maxed out my limit today.
I bought a carton of milk with 3 x gift cards and it wouldn't allow split payment only mixed payment.
Thanks for the info!
I should have checked this thread first before buying a few Shopback supermarket visa cards with the goal to purchase these gift cards. Now my only option is to buy 2 x $100 Vanilla cards each time…
Can I buy using a Coles gift card?
Doubt it.
Coles pushed out on update for its checkouts on 19 April 2023 to block customers from using any gift cards issued by Coles Group to pay for gift cards. I have tried using different types of gift cards issued by Coles Group to purchase different types of gift cards since then (e.g. Coles Mastercard gift cards, Ultimate gift cards, Uber gift cards) and I have triggered Invalid Product Mix error messages each time.
Feel free to give it a go if you want, but I would be surprised if it worked.
Went to two Coles today, $250 ones already missing from the shelves. only $25, $100 and $400 ones left.
Chexk in the freezers.. OZB fav spot for hiding 😋
Freezer Aisle huge thho?
That's unbelievably lame
Yeah, my nearest Coles are missing both the $100 and $250 as well.
Yep! Same as my nearest Coles.
10% off sale counts on new deliveries, not existing stock.
Update
Went to one of the two Coles @7:15am, had 2 stacks of $250 cards, bought 5 as still have plenty Coles prepaid master cards.Went in this morning to the same Coles I went to last night and can confirm the $250 were "hidden elsewhere" by an individual. Said individual walked in with me to the Gift Card display .. no $250 cards. Walked away elsewhere and saw him pay for 5x$250 of them cards. Likely picked up from a hidden spot.
I went today and only $100s left. I asked a staff member if they had any and she said "I have no idea" and stormed off.
If i purchased one of these, would i be able to link it through shopback to purchase example a 3% cashback $250 sca gift card?
SCA giftcard was 10% off in Woolies yesterday.
Oh dam it, missed it, probably expired now unfortunately
Just grabbed some and can confirm I was able to use it on Amazon straight away to purchase items.
An update: I just checked my Amazon order details for an unrelated reason and saw that the payment couldn't be processed off the Visa and it has charged my backup card. Luckily was able to cancel but as Wookie commented below I didn't wait 30min after purchasing so could still be loading.
That said, I logged into the balance check website before trying it on Amazon and it did show a balance of $250.
Will go to work and try it again this evening.
FYI Amazon don't actually charge your card until the order is in the process of shipping.
To avoid the whole waiting to find out thing. You should just buy an Amazon gift card with it from Shopback or Prezzee.
I was trying to use it to buy the Activ Visa cards so I can load them onto my phone and use them as a tap and go card to avoid any signature required dramas.
Great idea! But $7.95 fee applies - and the max is $200 isn’t it? I wonder if you can purchase with discounted Amazon GCs…
@bargain-hunter: You cannot purchase an Activ Visa gift card or an OnlyONE Visa gift card on Amazon using Amazon gift cards. There is no way you can use the gift card balance on your Amazon account during the checkout process.
@WookieMonster: Thanks @WookieMonster. Didn’t think so but I used to buy Restaurant Choice GCs using my Amazon credit so wasn’t sure!
@bargain-hunter: The title shows the fees but at checkout it's just $200 and free shipping so I was trying to check out with a $200 and a $50 in the cart. I can't try it now as I have to work but here's the link if you want to give it a go.
@daanish: The issue is: it is very difficult for you to dispute when the card is not properly activated. It happened with Auspost giftcard sale.
@Neoika: What do you mean by that?
As in because I didn't pay any activation fee I would be left without a leg to stand on if the card doesn't activate?
That's not something I thought about but ab important consideration. Cheers
How long do these take to activate? Tried paying a bill with it and it go declined.
Did you wait about 30 minutes between purchasing the gift card and attempting to redeem it? In the March 2023 deal, that was how long I had to wait before the gift cards would work.
In earlier deals, I had to wait up to 4.5 hours…
No I haven’t. Thanks WookieMonster. Usually the Coles Mastercard would work instantly. Hence I thought it would be the same.
It worked. Thanks WookieMonster
Darn it, I can't purchase $300 Supermarket cards from Shopback, curse their security protocols on giftcards.
Discount not working in NSW, tried few Coles but no discount reflected. Customer service says discount is only on Uber card which have 30X points.
Sorry my bad didn’t read the post correctly and got super excited :)
As usual there is little to no stock in the south east. With traffic so bad these days it is not worth it driving around looking for stock.
I was just at Southland, managed to get x10 $250 with my wife's and my FB cards.
Still plenty left, I estimate about 40+ cards remaining at the time I purchased approx 10am
No stock at my 3 locals. Usually no issues
Racks were empty so i suggest they have been hidden yesterday perhaps
Bring back the online 10% deal
Notice the total was slightly higher than the Mastercards? Like $2 more for 5 cards
obviously activation fee is different….
Has anyone used these cards in store at JB to purchase Apple gift cards. Will these cards work?
They should.
You should use them to buy the Ultimate cards that earn 20x points at Woolworths this week and then use those cards to purchase Apple gift cards at JB Hi-Fi.
Gr8 idea, any fees involved?
I was wondering if that's allowed? Can these be used in Woolies?
Yes you can. I just purchased the Ultimate cards from Woolworths using the Vanilla GC using self checkout.
@capslock: No. I followed the instructions from here : https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/14278952/redir
@xsmax: Sorry, I didn't find any difference between this method and normal purchase, but I went to buy a 500dollar and a 499dollar variable face value card to split pay today, and 250dollar each time was forbidden.
Why don’t you just buy the iPhone in JB?
You could but the original commenter said they wanted Apple gift cards.
Is there much of a difference between buying from JB vs Apple in terms of support?
vanillabalance.com doesn't seem to wanna give me my balance, the website looks like it's built in the 80s. Anyone else?
Yeah had the same issue.
Purchased today in Ringwood and shelf was chock full, i would estimate 100 cards and probably more hidden away.
Wow thanks
Hi all do anyone know if we can add this to any digital wallet?
Anyone know if you can pay quarter multiple times into VicRoads?
Tried to use the GC at Coles but get error message about daily limit exceeded! And the amount was only $14!!!!
Called the helpline and was told to wait 24 hours before use!??
Lol. A $250 Vanilla Visa card I purchased less than an hour ago appears to have already been stolen:
13/9/2023 - 11:22:25 - Activate And Load Card - $250.00
13/9/2023 - 12:01:28 - [POS Purchase] Pre-Auth Transaction-POS Signature Purchase PAYPAL *THEDR - $233.20
Available balance: $16.80
That's scary?!!
I'm not trying to victim blame or anything, but did you check that the packaging was intact before you purchased?
From the timing, I would think someone is recording the details off the cards in store, then checking the balance once per hour until someone activates them, then spending on them as soon as they get a match.
Packaging was definitely intact and there were no signs of the sort of tampering we've seen in past incidents.
Yikes, even worse then.
I wonder if the same card number is printed and packaged twice, just like the digital Coles Mastercard.
In previous stolen cases, usually the remaining balance is under $5.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/721415
The theft would be too generous for not spending the remaining $16.80 lolAlso CVV is required to add a card into your Paypal wallet.
On the other hand when a card is stolen, CVV is not required in that transaction, like TikTok or Healthy MassageThanks for sharing and sorry to hear your experience. I think I'll pass this time round…
Christ….you'd think they would want to improve the security on these so people hoard them and forget to use them like with other gift cards. I've been bitten by these before which is why I decided to use them right away but within 1 hour after purchase is so unlucky.
Yikes, this should be sticky at the top as a warning
So what happens now?
Trying to pay ATO bill - does it matter what "Cardholder name" is? Should it be empty, "FOR YOU" (lol) or my name?
ok it worked with "For You". Card was declined just until 30 mins after activation sharp.
You need to pay $249 for $250 card to ATO to account for the fee.
I registered a new Flybuys card last night for my wife to purchase these, however when attempting to purchase a few $250 cards at Coles the discount didn’t come through. The checkout attendant couldn’t explain why the discount didn’t show. The flybuys account has had all details inputted you would expect - any ideas why the discount isn’t showing? She has already received through some flybuys offers via email. Is there a need to do something else to get flybuys to offer discount on these cards for a new account?
Assume that the FB card was scanned?
Yes and showed a flybuys logo on the checkout. No issues scanning it in.
I remember seeing a condition with the Coles Mastercard special that you needed to be a Flybuys member for X duration in order for the discount to be valid. It might be a similar thing here. I can't remember what that duration was however.
From the previous deals there's a waiting period of 24 hours for new flybuys registrations before they work with these deals
Family Linked flybuys cards also don't work. My mum's is linked to mine and wouldn't work after I bought my 5.
Vic/Tas?
I cant seem to use Paypal to purchase prezze gift cards any more. anyone else having issue?
Just did it and it worked. In Paypal you have to select the card you want as the "Preferred when paying online".
Didn't work for me - "Unfortunately , your order was unsuccessful due to payment assessment from our processor…..".PayPal does send an email saying "You authorized a payment to Prezzee Pty Limited".
For anyone trying to pay their Council Rates, these cards didn’t work initially. But it worked after 1 hour, so there may be a delay in activation of the card.
Seems to be a lag between activation and becoming operational, as in my case, after calling helpline and 1 hour later it worked for me.
Lynbrook coles just re-stocked 30 mins ago
Any luck that QLD might have this promotion soon?
I doubt it. The trend has been to run this offer in February for NSW/ACT and then in September for VIC/TAS. None of the other states or territories seem to get Vanilla Visa promotions.
Your best bet will be a 10% off Coles Mastercard gift cards promotion. They'll probably run one of those on 18 October though who knows which states and territories will be included.
Cheers thanks for the info!
Plenty 250s stocked at a few of my local Coles. However had to pay for them at the service counter as they apparently don't work at the self checkouts
3 Will normally work at Self serve, anymore and it requires the manager password which the service desk staff normally know/where the Manager hides
5 stores in the Northern Suburbs of Melbourne - No $250's there must be something going on, spoke to a Manager who knows me and she said not many have sold, so they must be hidden :(
Will try again tomorrow as she said more stock was coming
Any way to pay rego with these? On the vicroads website, it seems you have to pay the entire amount in 1 transaction.
Change your rego into quarterly instalments. Otherwise someone else said that they went into a VicRoads office and the staff there allowed split payment.
Thanks mate. The admin fee on changing to quarterly payments makes my inner ozbargain sad I'm not getting the full saving.
When I checked, the difference was 2 cents, so yeah hand in your ozbargainer license if you have to pay an extra 2 cents and a CC fee for using a discounted visa card.
@HopSkipJumpFallSplat: https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/registration/registration-fe…
Key things to know:
A service fee of $2.60 applies for every 3 and 6 month registration renewal, unless you hold an eligible concession card.
so splitting it in to quarterly payments means you are paying $10.40 more than if you were to have paid yearly.
@fufufu: Oh yeah thats a bit rich of them, I'm on concession and the difference was 2 or 3 cents, pretty sure 2 cents.
@HopSkipJumpFallSplat: So were you able to pay for the second installment after you paid for the first or do you have to wait for the due date? I assume you did it online.
@fufufu: Mine was past due so it was fine, was already on quartely from previous card deals.
From memory you can't pay a second upcoming rego until x amout of time before it's due and I can't test that as a payment is being processed atm.
Yes, did it online.
@capslock Vic roads office, you mean they actually still exist.
Has anyone been able to pay by calling Vicroads? Australia's out of money…banks and government agencies have all been closing doors. My nearest Vicroads office is more than 30 minutes drive away…
you can pay it online.
@mmcs: VicRoads is a funny one. Some people can't bring themselves to pay the $2.60 quarterly admin fee even though they are already saving heaps more than that by paying with a gift card.
@capslock: The issue is when the annual is already due, it would be too late for you to switch over now.
You can split pay rego @ vic roads office, max 3 cards + cash
can't do this in post office or online
so the best way is to change it to half-yearly and pay it in 4 cards (2 cards X 2 transactions).
admin fee will be something like $5 in totalI d rather pay another $5 to save me 2 trips to vicroads which potential waste an hour each.
https://files.ozbargain.com.au/upload/210713/106526/photo_20…
Plenty of stock at my local Coles @5pm, somewhere in Melbourne SE
sometimes stock arrive during lunchtime. worth checking in the evening.That is an amazing display and how all stores should be stocked
Not 2 or 3 little rows like my locals :(
Where please?
Wow!!
I’m amazed when I see ppl pulling out a couple k in cash and pays for these cards. Perfect way to get rid of your cash sales.
Just came back from Coles Southern Cross. There are plenty of $250.
Just tried to use one to buy a gift card from Shopback… no dice! Anyone managed to get this to work?
I managed to buy x4 AirBnb gift cards. It won't let me link anymore cards, says that it detects suspicious behaviour, try a different card issued by a different merchant.
Interestingly I tried a $200 and a $50 purchase and it has allowed this… just not $250!
Has anyone used it to bpay via BeemIt?
Prepaid cards (this) don't work on beemit
I've just registered a new flybuys account online for my missus, verified email and phone. Tried to scan it along with a few giftcards, didn't get the discount… any ideas guys?
Need to wait 24 hours
thanks!
24 hours have passed since I registered flybuys for my wife. Still didn't work for whatever reason…
i tried 48 hours after registering and it wasn't working
So I found that after I completed all the steps in "Getting Started" and tried again the next day, it worked.
But by now all the $250 would have gone…
Are those safer than digital or worse?
I'd say worse because in the past people have sliced open the packs to get the details then sealed them up and put back on the shelf. Apparently they made it harder to do with different packaging though. I've never had a problem though.
Looks like these don't work through prezee paypal, anyone else have the same issue? Coles mastercard worked for me though.
couldnt use these to pay for my electricity and gas when mastercard worked fine.
are shops reporting they getting more of these every other day?
Could not find any stock in Melbourne SE Pakenham area
Plenty @ Mowbray for Launceston peeps (all four of us).
Ive almost given up
Only 50s at 5 of my local Melb stores.
They have nicely refilled all shelves with $50s……
Just go straight to the counter
I need to remember to buy more than I think I'll need next time the digital card goes on sale. Running around looking for stock of this physical card is too hard.
Yes, stock is close to impossible this time.. no deliveries it seems
@WookieMonster I tried to purchase something worth $40 with this card from woolies yesterday and press enter when asked for PIN however card would not work. It worked at petrol station before going to woolies. Had sufficient funds and also worked at coffee shop today. So wondering what can be the issue for woolies.
What was the error message you saw on the EFTPOS terminal at Woolworths (or the error code printed on the receipt)?
Sorry I can’t remember it but I tried 3 times. No luck
Without knowing what the error message was, it would be tricky to know why your card was rejected in the first place.
I have seen recent commentary that some redemption attempts at Woolworths will trigger a Card Over Limit error, but I have no idea what would cause that.
Your transactions could have also been rejected, because Woolworths was unable to contact the gift card issuer, or Woolworths was refusing to process the gift card, or some other weird unexplainable error…
@WookieMonster: I tried to use them at Woolworths Metro store today to buy The Perfect Eftpos gift card but got the "Items Not Allowed" message. Then tried to use the Cokes Mastercard gift card and got the same as well. Looks like wollies have blocked these cards to purchase another gift card.
@dealsgrabber: I heard a few weeks ago that Woolworths blocked the Coles Mastercard gift card from being used to pay for a Perfect eftpos gift card. However, I think you should still be fine purchasing closed-loop gift cards (other than gift cards issued by Woolworths Group) at Woolworths using Coles Mastercard gift cards and Vanilla Visa gift cards:
I had no issues using Coles Mastercard gift cards to purchase a Super Adventure gift card last weekend.
Someone reported that they used Vanilla Visa gift cards to purchase Ultimate Home gift cards a few hours ago.
@WookieMonster: I think I now know what may have happened. The lady at the counter might have acted smart and purposely selected gift card as the payment option. When I asked for payment to be split into multiple cards to which I told Visa card, she would have acted smart and selected gift card as she probably understood I was using prepaid gift cards. I think she was just being oversmart!
@WookieMonster: I just used coles gift MasterCard to buy ultimate gift card. But bloody hard to use in front of staff as they are keep saying that “not allow to use gift-cards to buy gift card”. I just bought $3500 ultimate gift cards (obviously different rewards cards and different Woolworths) but only managed to use $1400 coles gift MasterCard and rests from credit cards. The conclusion is Woolworth banned coles gift MasterCard to buy Woolworth giftcard plus prepaid visa and eftpos cards but not for third party gift card “yet”.
@WookieMonster: Thx mate. I tried later at another woolies today and purchased same thing and transaction went through without any issues.
Can these be used directly on the apple website to buy apple gift cards instead of going through Prezee?
You can use this to buy Ultimate gift card at Woolworths first, then use Ultimate gift card to buy Apple gift card at JB.
The new Coles in Caulfield Village seems to have plenty of stock of the $250 Cards.
Why cant Coles near me have rows of them like that?
I think the real question is why your local Coles cannot have rows of gift cards like this
(Yes, I know, that photo is from an old promotion…)
@WookieMonster Where was this Coles? Doesn't exist in Perth
Apparently they still have lots of stock in store but not on display, got mine from the kiosk
Thanks for sharing! Drove around to 5 different stores with no luck. Gave this store a call and they said they had heaps at the back. Can confirm that we purchased 5. Staff there need to grab them from the back though.
Is it safer to transfer these to an eBay giftcard? I'll be making a purchase in about a week or so, don't want to risk either storage method being hacked but not sure which is safer
I also wanted to do so but was only able to buy 3 from shopback before payment failed and I couldnt find any other online gift card seller accepting this card. I might gonna try to find some in store in WWS
The same thing happened to me.
finally found a few 711 that stock tcn and swapped for ebay
Has any one been able to split RACV annual payment
I rang them about it and they said maybe in-store and then not certain.
Has anyone successfully used these cards with Australian Unity/Wellplan Rewards?
I would like to try and use these cards to then buy Apple gift cards (6%) discount and subsequently buy a new phone… my math brings this to a 13.6% discount but hoping someone else has tried this!
Doesn't let me buy from Bupa rewards, possibly won't work with Australian unity. Sorry couldn't be of more help.
Yes, worked for me on AU, bought a Woolworths gift card with no issues.
The following fees are applicable to your Card:
Monthly Maintenance Fee (commences 7th month from date of purchase) $2.50
Foreign Exchange Margin (on converted amount) 2.5%By the looks of it, there's a monthly maintenance fee if you keep the card for too long.
There should not be a monthly maintenance fee on Vanilla Visa gift cards anymore.
Vanilla Visa gift cards with an expiry date before August 2023 featured a monthly maintenance fee, which you can see in the associated Cardholder Agreement. However, it should not be possible to purchase such gift cards, because they are now expired.
Vanilla Visa gift cards with an expiry date from August 2023 onwards should not feature a monthly maintenance fee, which you can see in the associated Cardholder Agreement. A number of post-supply fees - including monthly maintenance fees - were outlawed for nearly all gift cards (including Vanilla Visa gift cards) sold from November 2019 onwards, so if you find that a Vanilla Visa gift card you purchased through this deal is charged a monthly maintenance fee, you should challenge that with the card support team (or if that fails, go to AFCA).
On the note of foreign transaction fee, does anyone have experience with use of coles/vanilla overseas?
The vanilla packaging notes global use where VISA is accepted but not on the coles MC GC2.5% per the fine print
Getting insufficient balance error, looks like there's a pending $1 charge. So hard to bloody use these cards. I guess I'll wait and try again later.
More trouble than they're worth!
Great product!
Purchased at 4pm, attempted to use at 5pm - failed.
Checked balance; "blocked for fraud"
Checked balance again an hour later; "please activate"
Tried to call the 1800 number in the documentation, unable to connect at all.Ridiculous!
Welcome to the party.
More trouble than they're worth
Heaps in tassie
Can’t seem to find any $250s up north.
None in Sandy Bay and New Town
North west
I found a total of 5.
Oh sweet they restocked just before the deal ends lol. Cheers!
Any $250 stock sightings today in South East area?
Doncaster had a box about 2 hours ago. Said it was transferred from Mitcham.
Used 4 of $250 cards to buy 500x4 home cards from woolies.
I believe there is a limit on how many cards can be used at a single merchant a day/or a time period. But I just can't find a way to confirm it.
I've tried to use the cards to pay my council rates, I was able to use up to 5 cards before "transaction was declined" error. But then the next day I could use the same cards which were declined the day before, but can't go above 5 cards.
Today I tried to swap the cards by buying store credit of an online electronic store, I could only use 4 cards before the similar declined message was displayed. I'll try again after 24 hours and see. My theory was someone else could have used 1 card before me at the same store. If that's the case, potentially ozbargainers will probably need to "fight" for the 5 slots per day at a popular store in the upcoming days! This is ridiculously funny!
@WookieMonster, is this something expected? Do you know the approx limit per day/period of time of these cards? Thanks alot!
These type of limits are commonly enforced per customer by the merchant or their payment processor for security/fraud reasons. There are many places that do this, all with differing limits. To name a few well known ones: ATO, JB Hifi, Sniip and Shopback
I'm pretty sure
declinedstatus is from the card issuer, not from the merchant side. (I'm a software developer familiar working with a few different payment gateways)I've got to try with other online merchants who automatically requested 3D Secure, which apparently failed for this prepaid card. In a flexible payment implementation, they should continue the payment without authentication for Prepaid Card. But they of course can argue that they "follow" the best-practices.
If merchants enforce Strong Customer Authentication for online transactions, these type of prepaid cards will not work at all.
I guess we need to be ready to hop through all these hassles to save ourselves a few bucks :D
Many merchants use "Declined" as a generic error message. The ATO portal also says "Declined" if you use too many cards, where it's actually them blocking the card, not the issuer. And yes this card will usually fail where 3DS is required.
Saw 25 x $250 and 15 x $100 approx cards at Malvern, Glenferrie Rd, 30 min ago.
I was late to the deal and been trying the past 5 days to find just one gift card! Sadly tried 3 stores, checking if they would stock back up and asked if they have more but they could not be bothered checking the system or answering if they were getting more, "i dont know".
Dang, no deals for South Aussies :(
Got the last 5 in tonight, has a weird experience of being asked for my license and the lady writing down my license number claiming that coles had a policy of this for purchases over $1,000. Has anyone else had this happen to them?
No. They just make up the rules. These deals bring out the worst power trips, especially in older long-term female employees. Speaking as an older female. One I have encountered in 2 stores in the past week is you can only buy 5 cards even though my husband and I were purchasing separately. The assistant said because they were going to the some place. Duh.
Had two friends with me at another store and had 15 put aside for the three of us, had the lady screaming “wHo aUtHoRiSeD tHiS” in the mic and I pulled out the catalog saying “yeah I think it’s says 5 per person in the catalog, should I call coles customer support to confirm for you?”. The death glare we got while buying them💀
I was thinking about complaint about it but would probably be more trouble than it’s worth
That's actually a pretty serious privacy breach.
any one had trouble using this card with terminal without physical enter key? i had 2 encounter where the shop's eftpos machine terminal has no physical enter key, instead its on screen enter type, the enter wont active if no pin been enter, and if i enter any pin, it will decline as pin incorrect? normal one i just hit enter without any pin, then it will says signature required and pass but not the one without physical enter button, any one know how to do this??
Good deal but prefer the digital only cards. No paper/plastic waste and no need to find the $250 cards in store.