Coles gift card offers

[Bazzi]

Does anyone know of their systems would have a record of cards that failed to activate? I’ve discovered a $250 card I bought in October and seems to have not activated. Declined when I go to use it and get an error message when trying to check the balance.

I’m not sure if they check the card or the receipt through the system or both. During the April promo I bought 10k worth of cards in lots of 5 x $250 and without fail, at the start of my purchase spree, one in each 5 failed to validate. One of the team at our local Coles said it’s a known issue and suggested that in future I buy 3 then 2 which seemed to fix the issue. It would not immediately be apparent which cards would not validate if you were going through self checkout but each time it was picked up at the assisted checkout which then required getting another card, issuing a credit and then scanning the new card. Now I make sure I check each transaction for the ‘approved’ notification on the receipt.

 

[Dr Ralph]

From Wednesday June 28:

 

[albyd]

Thanks for sharing. I’m in the Apple ecosystem so excuse the silly question. I know of Google Play store being the equivalent of the Apple App Store. Can these GCs be used for anything else?

 

[Kandy]

Thanks for sharing. I’m in the Apple ecosystem so excuse the silly question. I know of Google Play store being the equivalent of the Apple App Store. Can these GCs be used for anything else?

i use them for YouTube premium

 

[exceladdict]

i use them for YouTube premium

Oh that's good to know!

 

[VantageXL]

From Wednesday 5 July: 20x Flybuys points on Apple gift cards at Coles.

Interestingly, the limit is now just "50,000 points per Flybuys account per day" instead of the usual limit of just five gift cards for the entire week. Hopefully this new policy will apply to all promotions.

 

[VantageXL]

From Wednesday 5 July:

 

[Bazzi]

Just a follow up to the fraud on our $100 gift card - not only do you require the receipt but you also need to know which register you used in store and the time thereabouts that you made the purchase.

Anyway, my partner persisted - were able to ascertain the date the gift cards were purchased through our flybuys account, printed a copy of our Amex statement showing the transaction, my partner 99% of the time uses express lane or SSCO so had to take a guess on that but with all the evidence the duty manager was able to find the receipt in 5 minutes. All sent off to Coles Customer Care.

Lesson learnt so we will be keeping all receipts for gift cards from now on until redeemed. A handy hint my partner discovered through a forum discussion about the fraud issue was to use the gift cards immediately to put your utilities, rates accounts in credit. Probably not useful for those redeeming $1000s of dollars in gift cards, but for us wanting to take advantage of the offers with a smaller spend, not a bad idea.

 

[Kerrodt]

Just a follow up to the fraud on our $100 gift card - not only do you require the receipt but you also need to know which register you used in store and the time thereabouts that you made the purchase.

Anyway, my partner persisted - were able to ascertain the date the gift cards were purchased through our flybuys account, printed a copy of our Amex statement showing the transaction, my partner 99% of the time uses express lane or SSCO so had to take a guess on that but with all the evidence the duty manager was able to find the receipt in 5 minutes. All sent off to Coles Customer Care.

Lesson learnt so we will be keeping all receipts for gift cards from now on until redeemed. A handy hint my partner discovered through a forum discussion about the fraud issue was to use the gift cards immediately to put your utilities, rates accounts in credit. Probably not useful for those redeeming $1000s of dollars in gift cards, but for us wanting to take advantage of the offers with a smaller spend, not a bad idea.

How was the fraud actually perpetrated? How did the fraudsters get access to the card details?

 

[Bazzi]

How was the fraud actually perpetrated? How did the fraudsters get access to the card details?

Online purchase made through a global billspay portal for a purchase from a US based store one week after we purchased the card in April. We only unwrapped the card to use the week before last.

From what we have learned only the last 6 digits of the card are different. Expiry dates are the same. CVC is different. It seems to be a matter of choosing the last 6 digits at random. Common denominator seems to be using businesses that do not require the CVC. Discussions around activating or registering the card once received (seperate to the in store activation) seem a reasonable fix.

 

[ChrisMars]

Online purchase made through a global billspay portal for a purchase from a US based store one week after we purchased the card in April. We only unwrapped the card to use the week before last.

From what we have learned only the last 6 digits of the card are different. Expiry dates are the same. CVC is different. It seems to be a matter of choosing the last 6 digits at random. Common denominator seems to be using businesses that do not require the CVC. Discussions around activating or registering the card once received (seperate to the in store activation) seem a reasonable fix.

How is registering the card fixing the hack risk?

 

[Bazzi]

How is registering the card fixing the hack risk?

Extra security layer perhaps - just reasonable suggestions we have found in the forums.

 

[VantageXL]

From Wednesday 12 July:

 

[VantageXL]

From Wednesday 19 July:

 

[lahlee]

From Wednesday 12 July:

View attachment 335859

Thanks for the tip! This saved me $$$ on a new Macbook Air at officeworks. And cheers to the VERY patient OW staff member who put through my 37 gift cards (I could only find $50 and $30 cards, since it was the last day of the offer).

 

[VantageXL]

From Wednesday 26 July:

 

[NoName]

I understand that it’s possible to have merchants refund onto these prepaid MasterCard but does anyone know if it’s possible to have more than the face value refunded? EG could $1,000 be refunded onto a $250 card? Paid across multiple cards for something and have a merchant suggesting they could refund to the one card to reduce administrative burden.

 

[twiningb]

I don't know but would be interested to hear the result.

 

[SOPOOR]

View attachment 337559

I understand that it’s possible to have merchants refund onto these prepaid MasterCard but does anyone know if it’s possible to have more than the face value refunded? EG could $1,000 be refunded onto a $250 card? Paid across multiple cards for something and have a merchant suggesting they could refund to the one card to reduce administrative burden.

I am going to say its more likely not than yes, because a $250 gift card should/might have a rule that it cant go higher than its balance.

I guess you could try.

 

[VantageXL]

From Wednesday 2 August: