A rack of gift cards by the checkout looks like stock. If each card carried a working code and a balance, it would really be a rack of cash, and it would need guarding like cash: in the print shop, in transit, in the stock room and on the shelf. That is why our physical cards are built the other way round.
What a printed card holds
A AfroPin printed card carries a 19-digit card number and a barcode. It holds no PIN, no balance and nothing a customer could spend. The card number is only a reference that lets one of your tills find the card and activate it. Like PIN codes, card numbers are never stored in a readable form: we keep a one-way fingerprint to recognise a number, and a mask for your reports.
Value is created at the till
A card becomes a gift card at the moment of sale, when the customer has paid and a till activates it for that amount. Activation issues a brand-new PIN and emails it to the customer. The card number then stops working for good, so the same card can never be activated twice, and the plastic in the customer's hand is no longer the thing that holds the value.
Several other checks sit behind that one:
- Only your tills. A card can be activated only by the reseller who ordered it, through its own terminals or API keys.
- Only once it has shipped. Cards from an order that is still being printed can't be activated.
- Only in live mode, and only for an amount within the product's limits.
- No guessing. Card numbers are long, carry a check digit, and too many wrong numbers from one account are blocked for an hour.
What this means for a lost box of cards
If a delivery goes missing or cards disappear from a shelf, nobody has lost money. Tell our support team which order the cards came from and we will void every card from it that hasn't been activated, then print replacements when you need them. Compare that with pre-loaded cards, where a lost box is a write-off and a stolen one can be sold on.
Staff still never see a code
Activating a card works like selling a PIN at the till. Staff see the card's masked number and the amount. The new PIN goes straight to the customer's email, so no full code passes through your staff, your receipts or your systems.
