[sooperficial]

Sooooooooooooo I received one of those Visa gift cards recently and I went online and tried to buy (what else?) makeup. I placed my order at Smashbox, used my handy discount code I found here at MUT. No problemo. I actually just received my purchase this morning! Yay Smashbox!
Now for the RANT.

MAC...oh MAC...i love you so much, but i effin' hate you sometimes too.

I placed my order on FRIDAY of last week. I was warned that with the holiday weekend my order would not be processed untill Tuesday. Thats cool, I am patient. So I get an e-mail from MAC telling me there was a problem with my card and I should give them a call back. Alright, I can call MAC and see what the problem is. Turns out they can not verify my billing addy. Well DUH I said! It's a gift card! But I have already used it to shop online and I never had any problem.

Well ladies and gents and folks in between.....the LOVELY (sarcasm) "customer service" rep tried to get me to give her an alternate card number, when the almost $100 charge shows as CLEARED on my giftcard balance! I explain to her I do not want to pay TWICE for my stuff. To make a long, sad, painful story short, the chick on the phone informed me that MAC does not accept gift cards like the one I had. (Simon Mall Visa) To which I reply, then why would they advertise that it's accepted EVERYWHERE Visa is accepted? Why did Smashbox not have any issues with the origin of my card?

Needless to say I was disappointed and slightly infuriated, both with MAC and the chick who "helped" me over the phone.

To make matters worse, the charge from mac is STILL on my card! So now I can't really use it until they remove the "hold" on my card.

GRRRRRRRRRR!

MAC, you really let me down.


Has anyone else had any similar experiences?

[Ashley]

Aww! So IS MAC going to remove the charge?

I haven't had a similar experience because I prefer to use those types of gift cards in stores. Actually, I do most of my shopping in store.

[Aprill]

Call the card customer service and have them tell you what to do, MAC can fax them a letter immediately asking that the hold be removed. On some levels, MAC sucks

[sooperficial]

I do too, but since I am traveling with the boyfriend, we are sometimes in SMALL towns. The nearest mac is 300 miles away. They have lancome and chanel at the dillards here. I love chanel, but I cant afford to buy it in large quantities, just a special treat every now and then. Lancome is so-so for me.

oh the things I do for love.

[StereoXGirl]

Yeah, Visa gift cards can be a pain. Most amusement parks and restaurants can't/won't process them either.

I'm sorry this happened to you! I'm sure it's a total pain in the butt!!!

[GlossyAbby]

I despise those visa gift cards....nothing but problems and my mil gives them every yr for xmas....that sucks your dillards doesnt have mac...I would die if my dillards didnt have mac

[Darla_G]

Originally Posted by Aprill

Call the card customer service and have them tell you what to do, MAC can fax them a letter immediately asking that the hold be removed. On some levels, MAC sucks

i was going to say what Aprill said. let me add the fact that i have had the situation 2 times already when you're checking out and the sales associate has no freaking clue how to ring it up. So you're standing there like 10 min to only be told no we don't take those. Worst idea Visa ever came up with.

and its even worse if you try and buy something for more than the value of the card. it inevitably gets transaction denied even thought the full face value is there. just call the number on the back of the card and don't let the store take the easy way out and refuse to take it. it is supposed to be in their Visa retailer agreement that they do.

[Adrienne]

I've never had a visa giftcard but i do know that we used to have a lot a problems with ppl using them when i was a cashier.

[katana]

That really sucks, I'm sorry.
I have an AMEX gift card, that I have not yet used because I was afraid of something like that happening. I think I'm going to take my gift card to the bank teller and ask her if I can just get the money......will they allow me to do that?

[Darla_G]

Originally Posted by katana

That really sucks, I'm sorry.
I have an AMEX gift card, that I have not yet used because I was afraid of something like that happening. I think I'm going to take my gift card to the bank teller and ask her if I can just get the money......will they allow me to do that?

i have a very strong feeling the answer will be no. I could be wrong but probably not. My advice is next time you have a purchase that is close to that amount on the card Use it!

[jmgjmg623]

I never by online because of things like this.

[Bec688]

That is incredibly frustrating! I hope you get the problem sorted out soon!

[pinksugar]

how annoying, I agree with aprill.. what she said!

best of luck, I hope it gets sorted out!

[ticki]

ok, hope this helps. my company gives out a bunch of gift cards as quota bonuses and i've gotten a bunch of these things. you just need to know how the system works.

to prevent credit card fraud with online and mail order retailers (they retailers end up having to eat the loss), the billing address on the card is cross checked with the delivery address. it gets sent to processing, a hold is put on the funds, the addresses are checked, and if everything is good then you get your stuff. MOST retailers do this to protect themselves and their customers. i guess smashbox doesn't do this which is why your order with them went through.

obviously the trouble happens when there's an address mismatch. since it's a gift card, the billing address will not be your delivery address and it makes your life hell.

what you need to do is either: call up the 800 number on the card and ask their customer service to "register" your address for the card, or they'll usually have a website printed on the card where you can do the address change yourself. you'll usually need to know the PIN on the card which is usually included on the insert that the card came in, or the 3 digit security code on the card is sometimes used.

once you do that, orders go through without a hitch.

sooperficial here's the link to register your card with simon mall for online purchases.

https://www.simon.com/giftcard/account_register.aspx

don't blame MAC. i'm actually relieved to know that they do crosschecks so that if somebody lifts my CC number, they won't be able to make false charges at MAC to random addresses.

edit:

i've never had any problems using my gift cards.

also, since it is a "debit" credit card, it won't allow any transactions that are greater than the remaining balance on the card. you have to keep track of how much is on the card. if you need to make a purchase that is for more than the balance on the card, ask the cashier to do a split transaction and pay the rest on another card or something. easy peasy.