Warning: TD Go transaction limits?

You can file this story under "developing," but I want to immediately alert my readers to a potential problem using the TD Go Visa Buxx card I wrote about last week.

My Experience

When my TD Go card first arrived it was loaded with my initial load of $20 (after my US Bank experience I decided I'd play it safe with this product). After activating the card, I immediately loaded it with $1,000 and headed down to my friendly neighborhood Walmart to make a bill payment, which was successful.

Over the course of a few days I was able to load an additional $1,980, meeting the monthly load limit of $3,000 without exceeding the balance limit of $2,000 described in the TD Go product guide (link not currently working).

Today I went back to the same Walmart and tried to make a bill payment for $1,980, which should have been allowed since it's under the $2,000 published daily transaction limit.

The transaction failed, with the error "debit not allowed" printing out on a slip from the register. Remembering this FlyerTalk post, I feared the worst and immediately called the number on the back of the card.

I was immediately connected to a customer service representative, who saw the declined transaction and set about researching the problem. He said "the limits recently changed," but didn't know the details.

When he came back, he told me that there was a new $1,000 transaction limit, but that I could swipe my card once for $1,000 and then again for the balance of my purchase.

That didn't work either.

When I got home I hopped onto Evolve Money and initiated a $980 bill payment to a 529 College Savings Plan account, which processed successfully and was immediately reflected on my online TD Go balance.

One Hypothesis

At this point, based on the extremely limited data I have, my tentative hypothesis is that the $2,000 transaction limit described in the TD Go product guide is not actually a daily limit, but is rather enforced over some other period. My current purchases are on January 26 and 28, so if it's a 7-day rolling limit I should be able to make another transaction on February 2 or 3. Naturally I will keep my readers updated with that data.

The reason to tentatively suspect that it's a 7-day rolling limit is that is the time period for the Nationwide Visa Buxx's $800 transaction limit.

The worst case scenario is that the limit is enforced over a 30-day rolling period, in which case this card is functionally only good for $2,000 in cheap manufactured spend per month, rather than $3,000.

More Data Needed!

Do you have a TD Go card yet? Have you run into any transaction limits? Have any of your large purchases at Walmart been declined? See you in the comments.