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"Vanilla Visa" gift cards are a RIP OFF! Do not buy one nor consider giving it as a gift. The decrease the amount of the Gift card every month. When you try to use it, it declines over and over. When you FINALLY get to use it by applying half the money you were supposes to have... they the C>C. continues to decline!
I will NEVER get on of these again...further, I will email EVERYONE at work, neighbors and friends alerting them of this rip off Gift card.
Absolutely terrible experience. Card didn't arrive, no tracking number, thrty-six minutes online so far waiting for help. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME.
My experience is the same as everyone else. First, the numbers wore off the front of the card. Of course it never worked at a merchant via the magnetic strip like it should. On 2 calls and in 2 emails they told me there was nothing they could do even though the numbers on the back of the card were intact and gave them all of the information. That was an obvious lie, so I made it easy on myself and filed with the BBB. You'll never guess what they discovered they COULD do! I had a new card within a week. Alas, now I am in the same boat as everyone else. Most all of the money is already gone. I'll now go through the motions with VanillGo only as part of the process. I'm fully aware they are nothing more than a scam and will do nothing but give me the run around. Then, in a month or two, I will set out to help others and hopefully help send someone to prison.
Please file with the BBB (Better Business Bureau), the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), and your state's attorney general. The BBB and FTC have easy to navigate sites, and at least the PA AG's website/process is user friendly also. The BBB form took all of 5 minutes, and the others look similar. We need to build up the number of hits in these databases to make VanillaGo stand out. These organization will help, but we need to feed them the data on the scope of the fraud. Don't assume they know.
Also, the class-action lawsuit link below was provided by another user. I went to the website, and it seems legitimate. It's a shot at getting some of your money back.
https://chimicles.com/vanilla-prepaid-gift-card-stolen-funds-class-action-investigation
Please take some time to help put a stop to this.
received a $500 gift card for christmas. Used it once and then was hacked. Reached out to them- they had to do an "investigation"... call them back after waiting over an hour on hold and 3 months( because thats the time frame they asked for) and they tell me they do not see any discrepancy on the card ! I live in PA and the card was used in CA. WHAT A JOKE ! None of these people speak english either. Terrible terrible experience
I just got a vanilla gift card as a gift for Christmas. I was only able to use a small portion of it before it declined. When I went on their website to check my balance it said over and over Error Check Back Later. This has been ongoing for days. When I tried to call their customer service line I was on hold for hours for several days in a row and no one picked up. I couldn't check my balance there either. DO NOT BUY one of these cards. Totally pointless and frustrating.
I got a $50 gift card with Vanilla and when I tried to charge ALL $50 at once, no way. They hold on to 15% of your purchase "for security reasons", then release it a couple days later... and it's ridiculous! After seeing that small print, I charged it to my Paypal acct card reader for $40 JUST to get something out of it, and my charge showed $48! So I waited a couple days and then I had $10 in my account (that $8 held and $2 I didn't pull out).
So then yesterday I kept at it and did a charge for $8, which of course showed as a charge for $9.20 against my $10 balance. Now today I'm showing a $2 balance and I'm going to charge $1.70 which will show as $2... then my balance tomorrow should be .30¢ and I swear it, I'll keep at it until maybe they can keep a penny of mine. Screw these guys. DO NOT BUY THEIR CARDS!
By the way... if you get one DO NOT try to use the entire balance with a purchase. Just subtract 20% (to be safe) and you won't get a DECLINE. I have a card reader for my Paypal / eBay business and I'm using it daily to draw out all the funds from it. They HOLD 15% behind for some reason and you'll get a decline if you try to charge up to your balance.
Today I saw I'm down to $2 and could only charge $1.65 to it. I swear that I'm going to go down to the last penny if I can. These people are a rip-off.
THAT SAID, unless it's an inside job... I have no idea how a thief can withdrawal the entire amount in one transaction because even legit customers like myself can't even do that. The card won't allow it.
Vanilla visa gift cards are horrible. Don't ever buy one they are useless, this company needs to go and have a class action law suit on them. I am so sick of these company's ripping us off.
I recently received a replacement vanilla gift card. I learned that you can load vanilla card funds onto your Amazon gift card if you have one. I quickly did that. I didn't want another screw up with a vanilla gift card.
My daughter was given an $100 vanilla gift card for Christmas and there was no funds have the receipt and everything showing it was loaded. Call vanilla gift card and they say send a photo of the front and back of the card with my id and the receipt. I did so and a month later I call to check and still nothing gave me a case number but told me to go back to the store the card was bought at we have done that 3 times already and they tell us to contact vanilla cause it’s on there end. Was told I would get emails with updates from vanilla and when I just called back to go over what is happening with my case number now they are refusing to email me anything they say. I am about to go to the better business bureau and attorney general with they lying ways. They have a copy of my id they claimed they needed I am so frustrated with this. NOT EVER BUY VANILLA GIFT CARDS.
Complete garbage. Was sent a card for my birthday, cant even access it without a constant "system error has occured please try again later". Been like this since late december, now it's mid february. Customer service is entirely useless about all of it too. Please if someone decides to send someone a card, just send them money via paypal, bank or cash. Actually having to deal with a garbage non-working site/card is a lot more frustrating with them holding your funds hostage without respite then just sending someone cash or paypalling someone.
Better to just put these people out of business so nobody else has to suffer with this constant nuisance.
Don't buy vanilla gift cards, time you purchased the card, the money on the card istud gone, fraudulent charges, and calling the phone number on back of card is a joke. Lost money to whom? Theven company does nothing, customer service takes forever to get to speak with a agent, and 50.00 bucks of my money is gone. This company should be put out of business asap
This [censored]ing card ruined my whole day. The money is there, but acts stupid holding the money for a damn hour. Tried using it countless times and it declines over and over. And the customer service is the absolute [censored]ing worst. I just want to rip the [censored] out of it. Worst decision I ever made.
These vanilla visa gift cards are a scam! This is my 2nd time buying it, I bought it to pay a bill over the phone and it was declined. So these people will decline the payment to the merchant and when you try the card again they’ll start taking 20% off your balance. Yesss and decline the Payment again so they can charge another 20%. It’s hard as hell to speak to a customer service agent and if you’re lucky enough to get 1 on the phone they’ll lie to you and tell you that it’s the merchant you’re trying to make a payment with charging the 20% so I don’t know how the hell I purchased it a second time but I was in a rush and here I am with the same problem, trying to make a payment on my tv and it’s declined, declined! DECLINED so Vanilla Visa gift card can keep taking that 20% off my card. So UNFAIR BECAUSE I DONT HAVE A VEHICLE TO GO MAKE THE PAYMENT ON MY TV IN PERSON SO NOW I HAVE TO PAY A LATE FEE ON MY TV! BUT IM NOT A SUCKER! THEY WILL NOT DO THIS TO ME! IM GOING TO SUE THESE MOTHER EFFERS AND VISA SHOULD BE ASHAMED TO PUT THEIR NAME BEHIND THIS POS CARD. VANILLA VISA GIFTCARDS ARE A SCAMMMMMM! Unless you go use it in person but by then there will be no money left on the card! I WILL PUT MY TIME AND EFFORT TO GET THESE DAMN CARDS OUT OF BUSINESS!
I buy these all the time and now the one I got for 75$ isn’t working saying system inconvenience and declining everywhere.
I right now am trying to get back stolen funds. I think they do it themselves. Well here we are at 60 days. They tell me I have to wait another 30 days. The dispute is with PayPal, that takes 72 hours to settle a dispute. This is over $100 dollars, and I am a dog with a bone, and I will make things very unpleasant for them. DO NOT EVER GIVE YOUR MONEY TO VANILLA GIFT CARD EVER!