In the thread about Gift Cards with PINs on FlyerTalk quite a few people missed this post.
I am lucky enough to be close to a 7-Eleven that has the VCom ATM where I plan on testing out a few things. I played around with it the other day and under the “Bill Pay” section there is a “Reload Prepaid Card.” It only works if the vendor is a Bill Pay recipient. For example, I typed in “GRE” for Green Dot and nothing came up. Type in “AME” for American Express and I could attempt to load my prepaid card. I hope to be able to load my Bluebird and Serve.
The ATM’s are Citibank and made by Cardtronics. It is much larger than the normal 7-Eleven ATM’s. This link will point you to the ATM locator.
Having found that, I am curious about signing up with a credit union that are members of the CU Swirl. It sounds like if you are a member of a credit union in CU Swirl you may be able to have all transactions free on the Vcom ATM.
When I test this ATM, I’ll be sure to try it out using a gift card with PIN.
Not sure what you are getting at with the CU Swirl… I understood the bluebird part.
If you are a member, does that enable you to get around fees even if you use other cards?
That is correct, from what I’ve seen and read from the CU Swirl site, you can log in with your card number and it sounds like it would unlock all of the fee based services and render it fee free.
I went to the CU Swirl website and realized I’m already a member of a CU Swirl member. I’m waiting to get my new atm, I had not used it in years and shredded it. I’ll have to do some diggitn around for how this works.
let us know what you find after the sign up 🙂
Will do, I’m still trying to digest if signing up with that Credit Union is open to the public
If not fees, were you alble to find any applicapility of the machine to our hobby? To load prepaid, or to buy MO maybe?
I haven’t had a chance to get back to the ATM. What I do know is you can’t load a Bluebird or Serve account on it. And it costs $2 for a bill pay.
I think the $2 bill pay can be useful if you can pay a $2500 bill with debit card. Even better if you can split the transaction into multiple cards. You know what I mean 😀
I don’t believe you can split the transaction. The other night, the thought came to me to use Paypal debit card and paying off the credit card bills at the ATM.
I thought about the Visabuxx cards + Vcom, but since it’s an ATM you’d be limited to ~$200/day and wouldn’t be profitable. However…
On that train of thought, it occurred to me of this possibility: use US Bank Visabuxx or Nationwide and pay credit card bill at check cashing place. Depending on the check cashing place’s fees, assuming they charge $2 to pay a bill it could be cheap and one could generate points at $.007/point similar to vanilla reloads.
that’s a great idea.. now onto find check cashing places that are aren’t sharks. I’ll visit those places just to stay at a fairmont or park hyatt 🙂
Visited one such a check cashing place today. They are equipped with Western Union system. I figured:
– only cash is allowed at that place, no debit card for bill payment;
– payee should be in their system (likely I couldn’t pay my rent, but might pay credit card bill);
– cost depends on payee – about 3 – 5 dollars;
– amount – I asked about 2K, seemed fine with that.
Well, useless that place was.
Thanks, I was thinking of going to a place like that near my job, also a Western Union. The only downside is, most of the times when I am free that’s when the lines are through the door so I wind up not waiting.
I had a chance to play the atm today. Points:
1. Was able to pay to Chase CC. $2 fee. Used GB debit card to pay.
2. Max amount atm notes is $1997.99 (a fee and a penny shy of 2k). BUT if try to send such amount or slightly less, the atm complains. The real limit it passes through is 1k. Fee is $2.
3. Bill Pay->Prepaid Reload’s payees look the same to me as ones from CC pay menu. I chosen Amex and entered my BB acc number, but it complained on wrong account #. I bet it expected CC acc numbers. (Would be interesting to ask Vcom which prepaids it supports.)
Idea with Paypal debit is valid to my mind. But if the atm uses bill pay by accessing cash back/cash advance feature of card, not sure PP will like it if do systematically… Cost will be comparable to money packs.
If eliminate the fee by joining some credit union, it’d open wider possibilities for sure.
Thanks for the data points.
I couldn’t use the Nationwide Visa Buxx. I tried $500 (for the $800 daily limit) and $198 + $2 fee for $200 for the ATM withdrawal limit.
I visited the atm one more time. Experimented to bill pay with Metabank’s visa gc $200.
1. Tried to send $198 ($2 fee less) to Chase cc. Failure.
2. Tried to send $98 to Chase cc. Used second identical $200 gc. Failure.
The gift cards are absolutely fine and pin too – loaded them today “traditional” way, no issues.
So looks the atm kind of doesn’t like gc…
Thanks for the report, it seems the Vcoms are a hybrid of sorts. Gift cards can not be used (ATM) and Nationwide Visabuxx won’t allow it for whatever reason.
I hope to try with the Paypal debit soon and see how that will go.