Okay, I'm sure most of you cashiers have dealt with Visa gift cards at one point or another. Those who haven't - if you try to charge more than the card has available, it just comes back as declined, you have to know how much is available on the card to use it.
With store branded gift cards, the register will usually just take whatever it can from the card if the charge exceeds the available amount.
I had someone come through my line today with a $25 Visa gift card (this part is important) and a debit card, asking to split it up. No problem, I get this a few times a day and it's incredibly easy to do on our registers (you press total, enter the amount to be charged, then press the credit button).
That's exactly what I did - Total, 2500, Credit, she then slid her card on the reader, told me it was asking her to confirm a $25.00 credit card transaction, she hit yes and signed it.
So both of us were confused when "Credit cards: $10.00" showed up on the screen. At first I thought maybe I had typed in $10.00, but she told me it showed $25.00 on the card reader. I tried to run a $15.00 charge to the card to use it up, it came up declined. I tried a couple of progressively smaller amounts and they still came up declined, she swore she'd never used the card before and it should have had $25.00 available.
If it was a store branded gift card, it would have given me a real explanation - the register will say "Zero balance on gift card" if one is wiped out, and if it's not, it'll print the remaining balance on the receipt. This one was just coming back "Declined", thanks Visa.
She was understandably upset, but didn't turn into a SC. She looked on the back of the card and found an 800#, said she'd try calling them, and I gave her a copy of the credit card slip (normally we don't give those out unless requested) so she would have all the info she needed to take it up with the bank - exact amount charged, authorization #, etc.
With store branded gift cards, the register will usually just take whatever it can from the card if the charge exceeds the available amount.
I had someone come through my line today with a $25 Visa gift card (this part is important) and a debit card, asking to split it up. No problem, I get this a few times a day and it's incredibly easy to do on our registers (you press total, enter the amount to be charged, then press the credit button).
That's exactly what I did - Total, 2500, Credit, she then slid her card on the reader, told me it was asking her to confirm a $25.00 credit card transaction, she hit yes and signed it.
So both of us were confused when "Credit cards: $10.00" showed up on the screen. At first I thought maybe I had typed in $10.00, but she told me it showed $25.00 on the card reader. I tried to run a $15.00 charge to the card to use it up, it came up declined. I tried a couple of progressively smaller amounts and they still came up declined, she swore she'd never used the card before and it should have had $25.00 available.
If it was a store branded gift card, it would have given me a real explanation - the register will say "Zero balance on gift card" if one is wiped out, and if it's not, it'll print the remaining balance on the receipt. This one was just coming back "Declined", thanks Visa.
She was understandably upset, but didn't turn into a SC. She looked on the back of the card and found an 800#, said she'd try calling them, and I gave her a copy of the credit card slip (normally we don't give those out unless requested) so she would have all the info she needed to take it up with the bank - exact amount charged, authorization #, etc.
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