In July of last year MetaBank released a new line of gift cards called ‘Happy’, there are different versions of this card that can be used at specific retailers. Recently MetaBank added new terms to the cards stating:
Card not usable to buy gift cards or pay prior debts
This is not actually hardcoded currently, but obviously individual cashiers could enforce these terms (as they are found on the back of cards). It’s also possible MetaBank are waiting a set period of time to use up the old cards before hardcoding this new language.
Hat tip to DDG
Has anyone had problems using the Happy card to buy a gift card at Buffalo Wild Wings recently? i figure I may as well get the free $5 bonus card. The cashier has to swipe the card so there is a chance they could stop you if they’ve been told not to accept it.
Update — used 3 $25 cards at BWW today and got $15 in bonus cards along with my $75 in BWW cards.
Does anyone know that whether happy card still could purchase third party gift cards at Lowe’s?
Happy lady still working fine at my bed bath beyond. Although I have been asked to show ID once and then told I couldn’t use it by 1 employee.
At Bed Bath, are you using the Happy GCs to buy Visa GCs, or just other store GCs?
I’ve done both
My local bbb will ask to see the paying card 99.9% of the time so no more happy lady for me. Ps. The register is definitely okay with it, just can’t pass the human eye.
Today I used my Happy Guy card to buy TP G/C at the self-checkout at HD. Never been able to buy G/C at self-checkout before so I was a happy guy 🙂 on both counts. This lane had scan guns instead of laser behind glass so YMMV.
As cashiers get replaced by self-checkout kiosks, some MS routes may come back to life?
Last time I tried Happy GCs at HD to buy a HD GC at self checkout, the attendant had to punch in an auth code of some sort and even though she said it wasn’t supposed to be done, she did it.
While I’m still seeing DPs of this working I’ve seen two DPs in another place I follow of people who got invalid codes when they tried to Happy Guy to gc at HD who have had it work before. One person was able to use another Happy Guy card they had and completed the transaction successfully but the first one they tried wouldn’t allow the transaction. Happy Cards might have figured out how to program against this but maybe it’s something they just figured out and it’s done when they produce the cards? Alternatively (and what I hope is actually what happened) it could be a batch of cards simply got sent out with bad mag strips. Neither person has tried to use the mag strip to purchase anything besides a gc yet.
I never found anywhere in Florida to redeem these for gift cards; ie, Home Depot’s registers never allowed buying a gc with a HC. I quit buying any HCs months and months ago.
You selected “credit” and not “gift card” right?
I find it interesting that people were using them to buy gift cards. I never thought of that. I just buy the Happy Guy ones whenever I can get a 10%+ discount because that’s the best way I know to get discounts on Home Depot cards (other than the occasional raise promotion code.)
It might be the new terms, but it’s going to be a hard thing to code. These are Visas that work at a limited number of merchants. It’s going to be difficult to hard code that into the register system – which the retailer would likely have to do.
Just grab you gift card, check out, and swipe the Visa – the cashier doesn’t even need to see the card.
Just deny cards that have the first 6 digits matching what Meta uses for Happy cards. Or even better- put a prompt on the screen that says: Check Card. That way you wouldn’t even have to test it, you could roll it out in an hour.
Yea, but it’s pretty hard to match an order that has a gift card in it and “block” a certain batch of credit cards. Not saying it’s impossible, just a lot of work for the retailer and they likely wouldn’t see a benefit from doing it.
Please stop calling these scammy CREDIT CARDS gift cards.
They are the same as any other Visa Gift Card, except that they have a limited number of outlets that allow redemption. Gift card is the correct term.
Related but unrelated, newer Happy cards are now coming with covered scratch-off numbers ( a good thing that has been a long standing demand, unfortunately may be too late). And the rules for redemption on these appear to be much stricter in terms of hard coding at merchants. While I was able to buy GCs with them, the newer Happy Lady card did not work at Buy buy Baby (rejected by register and not cashier) though it worked at Bed Bath Beyond to pay for GCs.
I did not try organic spend. GC only. Dont think it would matter though as the same Happy Lady card worked at Bed Bath on GC.