Evolve Stops Supporting Some Gift Cards

Evolve just sent out an email stating that they’ll no longer allow all debit/credit cards when the address doesn’t match the address on file by the bank. They specifically mention that the change will affect some gift cards.

evolve gc

It would seem that the change will affect all gift cards unless you register the address to yourself (something which is doable).

Okay, okay…Evolve  is hardly newsworthy anymore. For real debit cards, they should still work fine (and be fee-free);  this is just affecting the use of gift cards.

Still, they were useful as a backup for when you have lots of gift cards to unload. Also, if you had a few dollars left on a gift card, it was sometimes worth paying the flat 3% fee to unload the card. That will presumably end now.

I was particularly hopeful that they’d start allowing Amex gift cards to be used at a 3% fee sometime in the future. If that does happen, it will be less useful given the new rule.

It’s really surprising how they keep introducing these kinds of limitations; it seemed like they covered themselves pretty well with the 3% fee on gift cards. Maybe it truly is simply due to security issues.

Off to Plastiq we go…

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Dan
Dan (@guest_130352)
June 7, 2015 12:09

hmm, thanks for that, however I just called in to vanilla visa who said this type of card cannot be registered by address, only my vanilla

Dan
Dan (@guest_130340)
June 7, 2015 11:55

Hi,

How do you register a visa gift card address to yourself? I see the option on vanilla visa to register the zip code but not a full address.

evolve could still be useful to me even with 3% fee as I can get credit card bonus

thanks

max
max (@guest_128390)
June 3, 2015 17:00

Is there anyway you can pay pseg bill using staples reward cards after paying a 2-3% fee
Evolve does not recognize the staples reward cards anymore although they are linked to my address

any other ideas for getting money off staples reward cards apart from normal spend

Bill
Bill (@guest_128194)
June 3, 2015 05:04

The only other reason I use Evolve now is that I satisfy my six monthly transactions via debit to satisfy a bonus requirement with the debit card issuing bank.

I tried using an Ocean First debit card and they enforce a 3% fee. No thanks.

kliff
kliff (@guest_128079)
June 2, 2015 22:18

There are plenty of stores that sell Prepaid Debit cards that can be bought with credit cards, you need to look harder not afraid of being told no.

n
n (@guest_127796)
June 2, 2015 12:29

I went to three stores yesterday. Walmart, rite Aid and save mart. All had prepaid debit cards that could only be bought with cash or debit card.

A lot of these articles don’t make sense to me. Where are people able to find prepaid debit cards bought with credit? With a $5 fee on a $500 card is 1% most of the Cashback is already gone. Need large volumne to make sense financially.

Mike B
Mike B (@guest_127378)
June 1, 2015 19:39

I can’t imagine Evolve becoming any more useless. This means that absolutely anything you can do with Evolve can be done directly with your bank.