I’ll be on vacation until January 6th. Until then, I’ll publish a series of “mini posts” with an occasional regular post if something interesting comes up. I may or may not answer blog comments or emails during this time. Thanks for understanding!
I haven’t been to a Walmart lately, but readers have been commenting, tweeting, emailing, and texting with news about Walmart’s latest policy. Apparently, if you try to load more than $500 to your Bluebird card, they now require your Driver’s License, Address, SSN, and more. What follows are miscellaneous tidbits of info gathered from these reports. Please comment below if you can confirm or deny any of this:
- $500 Bluebird loads are fine and do not require extra info.
- You can load up to $1K to your Bluebird card without issue if you load $500 or less at a time, in separate transactions.
- Bluebird (and GoBank) loads at automated Kiosks are not working at all even when the machines appear to be functioning.
- Some Walmart stores are no longer allowing loads at regular checkout lanes, but instead require customers to go to the customer service desk.
- Walmart Bill Pay transactions over $500 are also subjected to rigorous information demands.
- I have yet to hear any reports about Money Order purchases. Anyone?
While there may not be any harm in giving Walmart all of that information, I’m sure that most people will want to avoid it. So, while this new policy doesn’t kill the point-earning opportunities available at Walmart, it does make things a bit more difficult.
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visited 2 Walmarts to buy a MO, using $100 debit cards with PIN. They would only allow 4 debit cards to be used, so I was limited to buying only $400 M.O. One Walmart in Cleveland said they did not have this limitation, but I did not test that site. This appeared to be a new policy since the workers were completely surprised when they could not swipe 5 debit cards.
I’m new on this, but someone can explain why you buy Money Orders ?
Is just to deposit again in your account ? Or you change for cash and spend it ?
Thank you!
Max per money order was $1,000 each. FWIW the one time I exceeded $3k using separate payment methods (Visa gift cards) I had to fill out the dreaded paper form. If you use one payment method (like a Suntrust debit card) they swipe your ID and take the information electronically
I’ve always shown my drivers license when buying money orders at Walmart service desks and don’t mind a bit.
[…] Getting carded at Walmart […]
Been having problems loading BB from gift cards too here in Las Vegas. One store has had ATM out of action for ages, another just freezes all the time. In another store, the transaction gets declined, but if you try it again straight after, it works. Managed to load 2 x $500 today, so happy about that.
Which Vegas walmart still has a working kiosk? I cant find any
Loaded 2 $500 VGC’s to BB at regular cashier this morning separately, two transactions. No issues. Machine as usual was out of service or I would have tried that.
I tried to load 2X200 (multiple attempts) at CS this morning. All attempts returned unable to process. Rep. claimed we are unable to accept gift cards anymore. The same VGC was later accepted at the register for a purchase.
At least taxes and Ins. are due within the next few weeks.
Loaded $1,000 via the kiosk last night (2 $500 transactions. No problems. Actually smoother/faster than usual. Probably because everybody else in the midwest was home staying warm. I actually thought my limit was $500 per day until I read your article! Thanks for enlightening me!
At the service desk for a $1,000 load I was asked for Name, Address, DL and dob.
[…] I recently read a post by Frequent Miler about Getting Carded at Walmart, and I’m reminded of my previous post on similar business practices employed by CVS. […]
I had a chance to see what was on the screen whey they had to reboot the software on the kiosk.
I can’t believe that it’s still using windows XP..wonder why it’s so slow and broke all the time..!!!
Went tonight to my local WM in WA state and used the kiosk to load $1000. It previously (on 1/1) wasn’t working and kept hanging up but this time I did two $500 GCs in smaller amounts, $300 2x and $200 2x and it worked fine.
Yeah I’ve had the same problem with the Kiosk – after entering the amount it hangs up on the screen where it announces “confirmation” for 20+ seconds and then errors out.
Then all of a sudden one day (Dec 30) it worked. Maxed out and returned the 31… broken again. Who knows. I assume they contracted out the software to the lowest bidder and this is what we get.
I went into Walmart this afternoon to buy a $500 gift card. Everything started normal, but then the cash register displayed “ENTER FIRST NAME” and required the cashier to type it in. The cashier hadn’t seen anything like that and wasn’t sure if she was supposed to enter her name or mine and decided to void the transaction and start again. The second attempt had the same results followed by “ENTER LAST NAME” after she typed in my name from my credit card. The next prompt was “ENTER STREET ADDRESS” which is where I called the whole thing off, saying I didn’t want this much information floating around in the Walmart computers. (Plus there was getting to be a big line of people behind me.) The cashier said she agreed, given what had just happened at Target.
Afterward, I went to a different department and loaded a $500 card onto my BlueBird with no problem as normal.