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

harrison121

Gifts cards can be awesome for anyone..... I use the mostly on Google play store and Playstation network

999

Did anyone discover what the method of transferring 3V back to cash or bank was?

That is something of a holy grail for those that buy 3V!

shaun_from_Africa

harrison121 wrote: »

Gifts cards can be awesome for anyone..... I use the mostly on Google play store and Playstation network

Some gift cards can be awesome for some people but is far from always being the case.
They're not so awesome if:
a/ The company or business that they are for goes into liquidation.
b/ The card gets lost or damaged and won't be accepted.
c/ There are fees to pay if the card doesn't get used for a while and the person who has the card isn't aware of these fees.
d/ The card holder wasn't aware of an expiry date and loses the entire balance.
e/ Not all of the amount on the card is used for a purchase and the balance is too little to buy anything else and the remainder stays in limbo until the card expires.

Marigold123

I bought a couple of £25 3V Visa gift cards last year to help bring me up to the target spend for a credit card introductory offer. I got them in-store from Tesco, so I earned Clubcard points on the purchase.

With a bit of juggling, I was able to spend the full £25 on each without losing anything. I used one with Approved Food, which has lots of low priced items, and I was able to put together an order for the exact amount including shipping. The second I used on a Tesco grocery delivery, which also, with a bit of creativity, came out exactly right. Tesco is quite a good candidate for this card, because their minimum order is £25, and using a few Clubcard money-off coupons can effectively cover the cost of delivery if you don't have a pre-paid delivery pass. You can't guarantee they won't be out of stock of something and charge you less, of course, so there's still a slight risk of losing out. The same applies to Approved Food.

I did register one of my cards with Paypal, to use for my Approved Food order, and can confirm that you don't lose the £1 or whatever it is they charge you to verify your card. They either put a 'hold' on the £1, which you can contact 3V to have removed, or if they take the actual money, it isn't gone, it's still in your Paypal account to spend with the rest of the balance, so you don't lose out.

I was extremely lucky with my purchases, and more so because I didn't fully realise the limitations of these cards when I bought them. It was a bit stressful, thinking I might not get all my money back, but it was doable.

Buying other vouchers with the cards seems a good idea, though I would want to know exactly what my options were before I used 3V again.

EDIT: Apparently, you can buy Amazon e-gift vouchers for as little as 10p, to add to your Amazon gift card balance. This would seem to be the perfect way of using up those last 3V pennies.

EDIT: To buy something costing more than £25 through Paypal, first add the difference to your Paypal account via your bank. Your Paypal balance is applied to the payment first, with the remainder being taken from your nominated source, ie. your 3V card.

jaydeeuk1

Ok..ok.... My local morrisons have now officially stopped stocking them, the gits, so here is the holy grail method - its so simple its brilliant

You can make more money from it using matched betting (bet365 is a good one) Depositing and just withdrawing will get you warned - i deposited a few thousand in to paddy power and then w/d straightaway before they cottoned on (account was limited anyway so didn't care)

But for those who can't/won't use betting sites, here you are:

Holy Grail Method

You will need 2 paypal accounts, ie yours and partners. At least 1 must be fully activated / linked to a bank account.

You'l also need the paypal mobile app. I'm using android but probably works on ios too.

Right, activate all your cards on 3v first.

Next login to paypal account 1 on pc, and add a 3v card (easier copying/pasting from a web browser).
Now, login to your paypal mobile app, and go to send money to family and friends (I found xferring only works on the mobile app, using website didn't work for me, i just get some random errors.)

Paypal warns that credit cards have a fee, however these are treated as debit cards therefore free. Xfrer £25 to the other paypal a/c.

Delete this card from your pp account and do another. Again send £25

I tend to do in batches of 4.


Now log in to paypal account 2 on mobile app and either withdraw, or if like me there is no linked bank account, gift the total balance back to account 1, and then withdraw (should show up in bank account almost immediately) from account 1.

As long as you keep 1 linked card on your account, paypal don't seem bothered (you may have to ring up after 20 or 30 cards, or you may not, seems random). I must have put through well over £10k by this method

Voila. Free petrol, and if on a cashback credit card, free money too. Mayweather would be proud.

Another tip, 3v have a limit of something like £1600 after which you have to verify your account sending all your personal details off. Eff that, its my money.

So register a gmail account, eg 3vvouchers@gmail.com and use this for 3v too
After £1500 worth register another a/c with 3v, this time 3.vvouchers@gmail.com Gmail treats addresses with a . the same, so no need to register a new account and try and remember passwords.

Trust me, you'll be sick to death of 3v cards after this.

Jerboam96

I was given a 3V Visa card last Christmas.Only just got round to using it. I went through all the registering business and found £25 had become £21. Definitely a gift to avoid giving.

jaydeeuk1

Anyone been able to get a 3v/pay.com card to scan recently? Tills wont accept them. I had to pay full price for petrol today, first time in 2 years
Still, was a nice little saver, after paying myself 45p a mile I made a small fortune tax free.