3v prepaid visa gift card voucher RIPOFF - hidden fees, early expiry

Legacy_user

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Del_Boy1

Hey, I got these cards before, you don't have to spend it all in one go.

They don't expire after two months, they last a year and the £1 fee isn't til the 9th month, and there's def no declined transaction fee.

The £1.75 to transfer the money to another card is annoying though, it'd be better to just have ones worth more than £25!

System

Hi del Boy it's nice that you created an account just to post that message.

I mean, y'know, it's not suspicious at all.

Unfortunately you are wrong, I found out the hard way, here is the T&C C&P from the site:

A 3V Voucher and the associated Visa number will expire 2 full months after the Voucher is purchased.
You can transfer your remaining funds to another 3V Visa Number or to your bank account for 12 months after purchase.
A service fee of £1 is charged on the first day of every month after expiry. Any money remaining on the Visa number 10 months after the expiry date will be forfeited.
For example, a Voucher bought on 15 January 2011 will expire on 31 March 2011. Any balance remaining on the Visa number on 01 February 2012 will be forfeited.
The expiry date is always displayed as a month and a year, MM/YY, so a Visa number with an expiry date of 03/11 will expire at the end of March 2011.
A 3V Voucher can only be activated before the expiry date.

Morty_007

Why not transfer the money to your bank account then? You WILL have cash then and the burden will be removed.

T&C's do kinda suck tho, i'll agree with that!

steve3188

Hi there
Regarding the 3v gift card. Good idea in principle, easy to find, easy to buy, price to suit most pockets. GREAT
Now here come the bad points. My 3v gift card was for e-bay
First you have to register the card with 3v. They want to know everything, where you live your phone number etc. good security perhaps???? Who knows?
Then the fun starts with e-bay if your card is worth £25, then that’s all you can spend on e-bay. You cannot make up the difference using another money source.
i.e. If you wanted to buy something for £30 you CANNOT use your 3v gift card to pay the first £25 and then pay the other £5 using another method of payment, e-bay will not allow you.
So basically unless you want buy something off eBay for more than the value of the card you cannot use the card. On the other hand if you buy something for less than the card value, it leaves the dilemma what to buy with the remanding balance.
So may I make a suggestion – if you are thinking of getting one of these gift cards – DON’T - give the person the cash to save a lot of hassle and hours on the telephone sorting it!

DaveGlo

Not happy, got 2 x £25. got charged £1 on each card straight away to register. Then charged £1.75 to move one balance to the other card to make 1 credit card number. Was short by £1.50 on my ebay purchase so ended up using bank account, got annoyed so transferred remaining balance to my bank to pay for the trainers off ebay and they charge me £3.50 to do it.
Dont bother with these cards, crooked beyond belief. At least itunes and playstation network cards give you the full value with no hidden charges. Im so angry I have wasted nearly a tenner on these scammers.

cletus_2

I have been using 3v for about 3 years. They used to have an old website called 3vcash and you used to get a plastic topup card that you at a Payzone. Which was fine, they used to charge a couple of quid to load it.

Now you can use a Paypoint and there is no card. So when you go to a retailer you have to say, I want to put some money on a 3v cash voucher and they look at you like your an Alien. Most often or not they say they dont do it and you have to push them to do it. Its a real right circus.

Up until a few months ago you got the visa number pretty quickly now you have to wait 45 minutes.

Transferring between cards cost £1.75 and if you want to withdraw any funds it takes (10 working days !!!).

There is no verified by visa, so MOST online retailers return a declined. I have not heard of any admin fees as another poster mentioned though. Just declined, not much use really to anyone.

All in all, I have decided not to bother anymore, especially as all of the major supermarkets have rival cards which seem to work better and are rejected less often.

After 3 years of perservering I have called it a day, I made a complaint to them via email and they shut down my account, so that tells you how much they value their customers.

No doubt one of their flunkies will come on hear saying, that their whiter than white and that all this hassle is for our saftey and security.

Money talks 3vprepaid and my has walked off with me out the door.

gbrown333

hi i had to reply and list my recent problem, actually yesterday it happened with 3v. now think everyone should avoid them like plague,very dodgy. and feel they may have even spent my vouchers (balance left on them)and logged me out of the account AND TO TOP IT OFF THE RESET PASSWORD LINK didnt work so kept saying 'action not allowed'

so i couldnt sign in to check my balance,an at present 140 is on the 3 vouchers i bought.
and their keeping it so disgusted and angry!
Ive used 3v for 2 years, and bought paypoint vouchers,and use it to spend as i go o n ebay.
simple enough,know fees suck 1.75 to transfer between cards.
but nothing prepared me for the latest.

i signed up a new 20.00voucher code,activated it and within 20mns
i couldnt log in,to accnt
like whats going on,knew password id just registered,so kept trying,then did reset password 5 times,each time 'action not allowed'
tryd phone them no visible contact number,but got one for ireland office
they didnt answer phone tryd for an hour.
awaited 24hours to get an email reply.

thaty didnt answer what the hells going on..oh no just crap.
only can i fax some id. not said their giving my money back on vouchers,and i had a phone refunded so 120.00 was on one.

im disgusted its not legal for them to keep the money and lock me out so i cant check my balance.FOR NO REASON
ALL THEY SAID WAS 'WERE RANDOMLY CHECKING ACCOUNTS AT THE MOMENT.'
now at present im 140 on these 3 vouchers down.
that i bought and paid my money for.to spend online the visa number on ebay.

IVE COMPLAINED TO FINANCIAL OB AND FSA OVER THIS.
NEVER COMPLAINED ABOUT ANY COMPANY NEVER HAD PROBLEM BUT FOR THEM TO BE RANDOMLY WITHOUT ANY REASON,BLOCK YOUR VOUCHER YOUVE JUST BOUGHT 20MINS AGO,AND LOCKED OUT FROM SPENDING IT. AND THE CRAPPY FRUSTRATION OF PASSWORD NOT WORKING WHEN YOU KNOW ITS RIGHT!
IM DISGUSTED I WANT TO TRANSFER THE BALANCES ON VOUCHERS TOTALLING THE 140 TO MY BANK.

BUT THEY DONT REPLY.

DISGUSTING NEVER USING THEM AGAIN WITH THEM
ITS LOAD CRAP, 3 VOUCHERS GOT SUSPENDED FOR NO REASON I USE EBAY THATS IT.

AND THEY DONT EVEN GET BACK TO GIVE ME THEIR FAX NUMBER

TO FAX ID OVER. THEY DIDNT INCLUDE IT THEY DONT WANT TO SORT ISSUE THEY CAUSED.


SO ANGRY,JUST BOUGHT PAYPOINT VOUCHER WANTED SPEND IT NOT ALL THIS HASSLE!!! AVOID 3V!!THEIR DOING FRAUD TACTICS NOW!!IM GOING BUY GIFTCARD VISA OR MCARD
IN FUTURE. NO MORE 3V THEIR NO CUSTOMER SERVICE IS USELESS AND PATHETIC TOO! AVOID YOU DONT WANT YOUR VOUCHER YOUVE BOTHERED TO 'GET THE CASHIER TO DO SUSPENDED AS SOON AS YOU ACTIVATE IT AS THEIR DOING OVER THE TOP CHECKS,FOR SPENDING ON EBAY ,ALTHO THEY SAY ITS TO CHECK ID.
I DIDNT KNOW THEY WERE A BANK.AS U BUY THE VOUCHER ITS DISPOSABLE DID NOT THINK THEYD CAUSE ALL THIS TROUBLE

bctomuk

My brother bought me one of these cards with £25 on for Christmas 2011.

A few weeks later I tried to use it to buy something that was worth £50 thinking it would deduct the £25 then would ask me for an additional £25.

It just said processed and then after a couple of days I got an email saying my payment had been declined and so I used another payment method.

I totally forgot I had it until I just gave my wallet a good clear out. Logged back onto the website and my balance is £0.

There are multiple 'Account Maintenance Fee' each month until it shows zero balance.

Looking for how to contact them I see all the stupid T&C's about it expiring after 1 year.

This is the stupidest gift card I have ever known.

Do not buy anyone this as a gift!

KGold

Hi All,
I work for 3V, and sort of stumbled across this post. (But I'm not responding on behalf of the company.) A lot of this is fair criticism- although do keep in mind that we're a business, and except for in-store gift cards, all gift cards have fees. The registration stuff is a hassle, but that's a legal requirement for prepaid products (anti-money laundering). Anyway, as far as the way we're run, we're really honest. We're Irish, so our customer service centre is in Ireland. You can find the number or email on the website. The people who work there are helpful, lovely people, and they will get in touch with you if you email them. If the service was down, it was most likely a temporary problem in our IT department, but we would not just reclaim somebody's balance, which is illegal. I'm not sure what the issue was with the £140, but please get in touch with customer service.

AdrianS

I was given a 3V Gift Card in late August 2012 and tried to activate it today. The response from 3V on their website was that activation has expired and the funds have been forfeited.

The card, which is a product of Rafaels Bank, has to be one of the most blatant rip-offs around. The charges are outrageous and unjustified. For example - and this is quoted from their website - it is "£3.50 to redeem the funds from your Gift Card to your bank account" and there's "a £2.00 service fee in the 9th, 10th and 11th month after purchase. If the balance is less than £2, the balance will be reduced to zero."

It is beggars belief that the bank is regulated by the FSA.