Complete guide to loading Bluebird or Serve at a Walmart MoneyCenter Express Kio.note¶
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Complete guide to loading Bluebird or Serve at
a Walmart MoneyCenter Express Kiosk
by
Note: On January 8, 2016 American Express sent out a notice to a large number of Bluebird &
Serve cardholders informing them that loading capabilities on their accounts had been
terminated. For more information, see:
Introduction
Most Walmarts around the country have an all-in-one ATM machine known as the MoneyCenter
Express Kiosk. One of the things this machine allows for is the loading of Bluebird or Serve cards
with debit cards. Here is how to do it.
Background
Most pin-enabled Visa & Mastercard gift cards (See:
) act as a debit card when used with the MoneyCenter Express kiosk. This
allows them to be used to load both Bluebird and Serve. One important exclusion is Vanilla branded
gift cards. These cards process as “credit” when trying to load Bluebird and Serve and thus do not
work (except when loading less than $50 at a time).
How-To Load
Shawn Coomer – Senior Editor
Amex kills Bluebird and Serve for manufactured spend
Beginner’s guide to buying & liquidating Visa &
Mastercard gift cards
The home screen of the Walmart Money Center Express Kiosk. Notice the Walmart MoneyCard and
Bluebird buttons towards the left side.
When approaching the kiosk, you will see a screen with a number of buttons as shown above. To
load your Bluebird or Serve, simply choose either the Bluebird or the Walmart MoneyCard option.
Note: Both of these options work, however I have had occasional issues with the Bluebird button and
thus always use the Walmart MoneyCard button. No matter which button you press the results should
be the same.
The second screen. Choose the “Reload” button.
After selecting one of the two options, you will be taken to a screen asking what you want to do.
Select the “Reload” button. You will then follow a series of prompts asking you to swipe your Bluebird
or Serve card and choose the amount of your reload. At this point it will process for a short while
before eventually asking you to swipe your debit card and enter your pin.
When the transaction has been completed you will receive a receipt showing your old balance, the
load amount and the new balance. Verify this information is correct to ensure the money was properly
loaded from your gift card to the Bluebird or Serve card.
The entire process should take between 1 1/2 and 2 minutes to complete. You can find detailed
instructions along with screenshots from every step of the process .
Kiosk Limits
While you can load $2,500 per day & $5,000 per month to your Bluebird or Serve card, the kiosk has
its own limits. In order to prevent fraud, the Walmart kiosk only allows 1,999.99 in loads per rolling 10
minute period. If you hit this limit, the machine will lock up and require a manager to override your
transaction. (Some stores have set longer time limits, but most are 10 minutes.)
To avoid a lockup, load no more than $1999.99 per 10 minute period. (I generally leave a penny on
my last card for example.) Once you have hit that limit, wait 10 to load again. Note that the 10 minute
period is rolling and thus you don’t need to wait 10 minutes from your last load. It is just $1,999.99 in
the last 10 minutes.
If you find yourself with a lot of gift cards to load, a good strategy is to load $1999.99 at the kiosk,
then go to a register or two to do additional loads during the 10 minute waiting period. Once the 10
minutes has passed you should be able to load another $1999.99.
For more on the kiosk limit and how to avoid locking up the machine, see:
Kiosk Issues
The Walmart MoneyCenter Express kiosks are notoriously unreliable. In some areas of the country it
is nearly impossible to find a working kiosk. Even when they work, they can have small glitches such
as requiring a 9 digit pin or a second 4 digit pin. (Your card only has one four digit pin, so when this
happens you will be stuck.)
Fortunately both of those problems are rare & can normally be fixed by rebooting. While you can’t
reset the machine yourself, simply flag down an employee and they should be able to help. They are
used to the unreliability of the machines and generally won’t question why it should be reset.
Finally, the depending on the store, the speaker on these machines may be set a bit too loud. If you
don’t want everyone in the store to know what you are doing, there is a way to shut it off. (See:
.)
Conclusion
Loading Bluebird or Serve at a Walmart MoneyCenter Express kiosk is very easy once you get the
hang of it. While it can provide a way to avoid long lines and over ambitious cashiers, there is a trade
off since the machines are slower per transaction and have a few quirks.
here
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