Today only: how to redeem any 3V cards you still hold for free

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Last year, buying 3V Virtual Visa cards from Tesco was very profitable. For £50, you got £50 of Visa gift cards. Tesco also gave you 150 bonus Clubcard points and (if you had an Amex sign-up bonus to meet) you got to spend £50 on your Amex card at Tesco. You could then liquidate your 3V cards by paying them into certain bank accounts or paying your tax or council tax bills.

Back in December, 3V suddenly stopped letting people use their cards for ‘financial’ transactions. This left some people holding large stocks which were now trickier to use up. It also made them less attractive to buy.

If you are still sitting on some 3V cards, help may be at hand – but you must act today.

On January 3rd, 3V sent an email to all registered customers.

It outlined the changes to the regulatory regime governing 3V cards. It also placed a limit on the number of cards you could buy in a year of £25,000.

These changes amounted to a change in the terms and conditions governing 3V cards. Clause 8.3 of the Terms and Conditions for 3V cards states with regard to changes to their terms and conditions:

“If You are not happy with any such change to these Terms and Conditions, You may, without notice, within sixty (60) days of the date of notice of such change, cancel Your 3V Visa Number and terminate this Agreement. In such cases, You will not be subject to any Redemption Fee in accordance with Clause 6.”

Basically, you must act TODAY (4th March, which is 60 days from the date of that email) if you want 3V to reimburse you for your entire balance of 3V cards, with no redemption fees.

3V is already doing this for people. They have no choice, it is in the rules. Importantly, it does NOT just apply to cards you had bought before January 3rd. Even cards bought after that date can be refunded.

You need to email 3V Customer Services. They are giving people two different routes:

They may ask for the 4-digit security code of each of your 3V cards and the IBAN number of your bank account. (IBAN is the global ID number for your bank account. It should be printed on your bank statement or will be visible via online banking. It is required for wiring money from outside the UK.) Once done, you will receive your money within 7 days.

Alternatively, they may ask you to register all your cards online. They will then, once you confirm it is done, trigger a redemption for you without adding the fee.

I apologise for the very short notice here, but I have only just found out about this option myself.

Category

General

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Dominic says:

5 Mar5 March 14:53

There is another way that still seems to work to redeem these. If you go to highstreetvouchers.com you can order any number of loads of £25 gift vouchers for Sainsbury, Waitrose, Amazon, Asda, etc etc etc. I’ve never had a problem using a 3V card to pay for a £25 order of vouchers. Postage is free on the order, so you absolutely get back £25 worth of credit with your store of choice.
- James Ward says:
  
  5 Mar5 March 14:55
  
  Just don’t do too many in one go. I got 35/40 purchases refused when I tried to buy 40x £25 JL vouchers in a short space of time.
Mij says:

6 Mar6 March 09:32

On a side note – It seems the Tesco spend £50 on non Tesco gift cards and get 150 clubcard offers seems to have finished as I don’t see that promo sign near the giftcards. Can anyone confirm?
- James Ward says:
  
  6 Mar6 March 09:40
  
  It’s still running. I bought 4 x £25 3V cards yesterday (with £12 conditional spend voucher) and received 300 CC points.
  - squills says:
    
    6 Mar6 March 11:00
    
    Still working fine, can confirm
    - Mij says:
      
      6 Mar6 March 13:15
      
      brill!
John says:

6 Mar6 March 09:47

Just got this e-mail from 3V, reckon I’ll be OK to set up a new account as this is how I like to use up my Tesco helping hand coupons:

Regarding your request to avail of the free redemption offer, please be advised that your redemptions are now in progress. Our Finance department will waive these fees on this occasion.

Please be advised that as you have not accepted the updated Terms and Conditions, we have now suspended your account and you will no longer be able to activate any new Gift Cards on this account.

If you have any other queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to email us again.
- Joe says:
  
  6 Mar6 March 10:19
  
  I just got the same! 🙂
What's the Point says:

10 Mar10 March 20:23

Has anyone tried going over the £2,000 yearly limit on the VISA fee cards that you can buy in £25 or £50 denominations?
- Simon says:
  
  10 Mar10 March 21:08
  
  An easy way to get around the £2,000 yearly limit is not to register them on the gospendit website, they can be paid into NS&I without being registered.
  - Idrive says:
    
    10 Mar10 March 21:40
    
    I thought you needed to register them for online use. Otherwise what name would they match in any case?
    - Simon says:
      
      10 Mar10 March 22:01
      
      That is what I would have thought also, a name and / or address would need to match but for NS&I that isn’t the case, I paid 2 cards in on Saturday without registering them.
      - What's the Point says:
        
        12 Mar12 March 21:22
        
        A most interesting option indeed! I’ll give it a go next time I pick one up.
        Thanks for the tip.
Joe says:

13 Mar13 March 00:29

Any received there Money from this?

Any Idea how long it takes?
- James Ward says:
  
  13 Mar13 March 00:34
  
  Neither my dad nor I have received our refunds yet. 3V said they would be processed on Monday. s they’re being transferred using the international bank account number (IBAN) I’m expecting the transfer to take a few days from then
- Singing Dwarf says:
  
  17 Mar17 March 16:20
  
  Hi Joe, I was the reader who alerted Raffles to this ‘anomaly’ in the 3V terms and conditions (which incidentally, I note they still have not updated on their website!).
  
  3V process the redemption requests every Monday and the funds are transferred from their bank account two days later. They say that the funds should appear in your bank account eight business days after the redemption was processed (i.e. by the following Thursday), but the funds appeared in my account the following Tuesday.
  
  If you applied on the 4th March in response to Raffles post, I would expect them to have processed the request last Monday. Assuming that they did actually manage to process all of the requests on Monday(!), I would expect to see the funds in your bank account anytime from tomorrow until Thursday.
  - Joe says:
    
    17 Mar17 March 16:27
    
    HI,
    
    I have emailed them and they have stated:
    
    The redemption has been requested and will be processed on Monday, March 17th.
    
    You might receive your funds within following 8 working days.
    
    Even though I had confirmation saying that my redemptions were being processed. (Sent 6 March)
    
    I have looked at my 3v account and can see this:
    
    17/03/2014 3V ONLINE Customer redeemed voucher. Approval
    - Singing Dwarf says:
      
      17 Mar17 March 16:42
      
      Looks like they were over-whelmed due to Raffles post!
craig says:

13 Mar13 March 23:57

I found that highstreetvouchers.com allowed 3V cards for the first 2-3 Asda giftcards I bought then after that they rejected them, have now given up on that avenue.
- Brian says:
  
  14 Mar14 March 00:46
  
  They rejected one of mine some time ago, so I thought that avenue was closed, but it was just that 3V card – subsequent ones were fine. So no need to give up – I used it as recently as two days ago with no problems.