Vinh at MilesperDay just posted a memo that was sent out to USPS locations regarding the use of gift cards for money order purchases. The memo (pictured below) states that due to specific instructions directly from headquarters, the official USPS policy is that gift cards cannot be used for Postal Money Orders.
Currently, as many of you know, you are able to pay for money orders with a variety of gift cards. This is one of the avenues of unloading gift cards purchased through various deals. However, the memo notes that updates preventing these types of transactions are being pushed to all RSS terminals soon. That means that it will be hardcoded in the system.
Even though it is still possible to continue making these purchases for now, clerks are being advised to watch out for such transactions and to stop them if they identify anyone using gift cards. They are also providing some tips as to how to identify gift cards from debit cards that are actually linked to a person’s bank account.
- Person has stack of debit cards preloaded with $500 or $250
- Gift cards don’t normally come with embedded chip
- Gift cards do not have customer’s name in them
- Gift cards will often say “Gift Card” on the front of the card
Guru’s Wrap-Up
This could be regional but it will likely become the norm nationwide once the fix starts rolling out. You could still be able to continue using gift cards for money order purchases for now, depending on cashiers and your location, but I would advise against relying on this method long term. Once it’s hardcoded in the system, you’ll have to look at other options for unloading your gift cards.
4 thoughts on “USPS Stops Accepting Gift Cards For Money Order Purchases”
If people will do only one swipe, the clerk may “forget” to ask to see their debit card but if one does split payments, they may remember the memo and ask to see the cards. For now, seems it’s going to be business as usual since it depends on the clerk you’re dealing with if they’ll enforce the memo or not.
Yes I agree. I think it should be ok now for most people.
oh crap… this is not good
Not good at all.