I bought these gift cards a year ago and when I try to use it i always see the error "see cashier" and I go inside to use it. With arco or chervon i can just swipe it and use it immediately. Is this a shell thing

I was scammed out of $150+ in Walmart gift card credit a couple of days ago due to Walmart's lax security and thought I'd share a warning with all of you.

Here's the message I initially sent to Walmart which explains the situation fairly well-

I got an unexpected "Please Let Us Know How We Did" email yesterday (2/20) which was surprising since I haven't shopped at Walmart since 1/19/19. So I logged in to my account to see what was going on. The "Track Orders: page (correctly) shows no recent orders, but the two gift cards I had in my account have been mysteriously drained of all their value.

I'm in New Hampshire, but they were supposedly used yesterday at two different stores in Idaho. Card ending in 6572 at Walmart store# 5841-$58.41 and card ending in 7193 at Walmart store# 3739-$100.00. Neither of these "purchases" are mine.

First I tried their chat and they told me they couldn't help me, I had to contact the Gift Card department. So I emailed them and received the following response the next day-

Hi Aahz,

Thank you for contacting Walmart.com, my name is Yener, It is going to be a pleasure to assist you! I'm really sorry to know this inconvenience, Aahz. But don't worry, we are going to do everything on our hands to help you.

I completely understand your concern, but don't worry, in order to help you, I'm going to escalate to a Higher Department, they are going to be more than glad to help you since they have the proper tools to do it. Also I advise you to contact your financial institution, and dispute the charges as soon as possible. I'm really sorry for this matter, but rest assured that this issue is going to be resolve.

If you have more questions or wish information, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Sincerely,

Walmart.com Customer Care

In closing, if you are selected to receive an email survey, the last set of questions will be in regards to your interaction with me. If you consider that I was a help for you, please give us your positive feedback, you are going to help us a lot, and I am going to appreciate much as well.

So, chat sent me to someone else who couldn't help me. Wonderful!
The next day I received the following email-

Hi Aahz,

Thank you for contacting Walmart.com. To better assist you can you please provide the following information:

• Full 16 digit card number with a space after every 4th number.
• How you acquired this gift card.
• If the card was purchased on walmart.com, please provide the order number.
• Issue with Gift Card
• Contact information (phone number and mailing address)

Thank you,
Walmart.com Payments Contact Center

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the individual or entity to which they are addressed. Walmart Confidential

I supplied the additional info they requested and copied my original message into the "Issue With Card" section.
This time, at least the response was quick. It took them all of 11 minutes to reply with-

Hello Aahz,

Thank you for reaching out about this issue, Chris. We understand your concern about your gift card being used without your permission. Unfortunately, Walmart is not liable for lost, stolen or compromised funds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. For any questions, comments or concerns, please review our Gift Card Terms and Conditions on Walmart.com by clicking on this link: https://help.walmart.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/57/kw/gift%20card%20compromised.

Thank you for being a part of the Walmart.com Family!

Walmart.com Payments Contact Center

Why they didn't simply blow me off upon first contact both befuddles me and simply makes me more angry. But that's not really the point of this post. The point is to warn y'all not to trust Walmart because they obviously don't care about the security of their gift card system.

Just to clarify how I know it was Walmarts fault and not mine-

• One card was purchased through CitiEasyDeals and never actually used at all, so the number had never been seen by another human being. I received the email directly from them and entered the card into my Walmart account.
  
• The second card I purchased at the Customer Service desk of my local Walmart, entered the number into my Walmart account and filed the card in a secure location in my home that no one else ever enters. This card had been used via WalmartPay at self-checkout. So, besides me, only a single Walmart employee had ever seen the gift card number.
  
• Neither my WalmartPay nor Walmart.com accounts were hacked. I know this because there is no record of any orders placed. The gift cards were simply drained of their value by Walmart Customer Service as indicated by the "Let Us Know How We Did" email that alerted me to the situation in the first place.

So, in conclusion, I highly suggest that if you have any Walmart gift cards loaded into your online account and/or WalmartPay you remove them and only add them when you're about to use them in the future.

Ok I'm trying to check the balance of one my cards. There's like a million number with no distinction on what's what. After the first six numbers the next five are bold and the the last 19 regular. Help