Avoid AmEx gift cards

[GetawaysRus]

I purchased my AmEx gift cards online directly from AmEx. There are fees, but AmEx sometimes has codes to defray a good percentage of those fees. I would purchase a bunch of different denominations ($25, $50, $100) and we would then use them over the course of the year as gifts (both personal and professional). They were handy, but I won't be purchasing any more in the future because of fraud issues.

A prepaid American Express gift card does not come with a PIN number. I wonder if that's why they are easy targets for fraud?

My sweetheart really likes having a bunch of gift cards in our safe because they make such easy gifts. So I'm planning to switch my gift card purchases to VISA and Mastercard gift cards from office supply stores. Again, these have purchase fees. Office Depot runs periodic "sales." During such a sale, you get $ off if you purchase a certain amount in gift cards. So those $ off will lessen the bite of the gift card fees.

I can register and change the PIN online on VISA and MC gift cards from Office Depot or Staples. (The default PIN is the last 4 digits on the card, and I think that's just too easy to guess.) They work as debit or credit. Fingers crossed, but to date I've never had a fraud problem with them. When we give these as gifts, I tell the recipient to run them as credit.

 

[gravityrules]

Update ... $8.38 still held from 2 charges and it's been almost a month since those charges posted. This is also after a call to AMEX and a promise that all holds would be cleared by now.

Holds finally cleared today, 1 month after associated charges.

 

[1Kflyerguy]

Holds finally cleared today, 1 month after associated charges.

Glad you got this resolved.

Thought of this thread when the lady in front of me at the Grocery store had a big stack of Amex gift cards, was swiping multiple cards to make her purchase...