In message , at 08:31:52 on
Fri, 2 Mar 2012, Robert Neville remarked:
There are lots of gift cards, but to be honest I've never thought they
might be numbered like credit cards. They are branded to particular
stores or chains.

In the US, gift cards have evolved over the past few years. They used to be
issued by the store in question and may or may not have had a proprietary
account number embossed/recorded.

A few years ago, the major card issuers became aware of the market and decided
they wanted a peice of the float/lost card funds and started issuing gift cards
on behalf of the retailers. Now days, they are essentially prepaid debit cards.
Depending on the card, they can be restricted to a particular store, chain of
stores, or used anywhere a credit card is accepted.

I've just come back from ASDA, which is the UK's branch of Walmart.

They have gift cards, but only mag stripe, and neither visibly numbered
nor containing a chip-and-pin. The latter is going to raise the bar, for
gift cards masquerading as credit/debit cards, in the UK.

The literature said you could load up to £500 on them, and as far as I
could see were only redeemable at ASDA (not including some high risk
concessions). They will also give regular refunds on these gift cards,
if you ask for it rather than cash.

https://cards.asda.com/faqs

I do worry about the "Monkey Bank" brand name, after all if you pay
peanuts...
--
Roland Perry