Re: [Debconf-team] WRL (debit card) phone chat

[Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy@debconf.org>]

Hi Blars,

On Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 08:21:05PM -0700, Blars Blarson wrote:
> If we are not able to recover unused funds on the cards, is there any
> reason to make the active period short or restrict how the card can be
> used?  We've already spent the money, it either goes to the person
> with the card or the bank.
> 
> If the cards arn't personalized, can anyone use them?  We could ask
> for the card back then use or sell the remaining balance.

The only personalization is in regards to the name on the card, or whatever we
want to put in those two lines of embossed text; this is mostly relevant for
online purchases where sometimes the merchant requires the name and address
listed on the card.

The reason to restrict how the card can be used or to make the active period
short is because of SPI's 501(c)(3) status; our money is required to be used
for exempt purposes, which includes facilitating incidental food expenses of
sponsored DebConf attendees but not arbitrary purchases by anyone anywhere at
any time.

We'll take what we can get about the validity period, but we can't have people
using our food money to pay for something entirely unrelated like e.g.
Atlantic City casino gambling or political donations. The alternative ways to
ensure that with a general-purpose debit card are not really practical for us.

I'm not horribly worried about the unused funds on the card as long as we can
find some way to not get bitten by the "extra 15-20%" thing for restaurant
transactions which I mentioned in my previous mail, since then the remaining
amount will be negligible. As you say, we could use up the remaining funds at
the end of the conference after getting the cards back. Good suggestion.

> Are we charged the full amount for unactivated cards?  If a card is
> personalized, and the person does not show up...

We're charged per card, period. If we don't care about tracking which
attendees' cards are activated, or if we keep our own records of which card
number is given to which person, we're certainly not required to personalize
the cards.

There is some refund bit in the FAQ which mentions a $7/card fee to remove the
funds from the cards and return them to us within 60 days of purchase, but this
seems to be referring to the entire order of cards, not unactivated ones.

Thanks for the feedback.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy@debconf.org