To avoid buying or giving an empty card, only purchase gift cards from secure displays or from stores that load the card with its value at the checkout, advises Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs.com.

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As part of the deal, banks will also be able to securely load their customers' card account information into computer chips located in the handsets.

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Consumers who buy the deal will be required to enter their Big Y Express Savings Club membership number for the deal to load on their loyalty card.

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RushCard will offer the same free ATM network early next year but, unlike American Express, RushCard will offer this ATM network free to all of our customers irrespective of how they load funds onto the card.

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Players only have to load assets on an SD card if they'd like a different look, and they even have access to the firmware and schematics if they want to go completely off the beaten path.

ENGADGET

In May, Bank of America introduced a Visa card that people can load up with money and mail to relatives in Mexico.

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Last week Barclaycard and Orange announced that credit or debit card holders from all UK banks would be able to load money onto Barclaycard's mobile payments application, in the Quick Tap wallet.

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If that's not enough, or you want to load up your latest jams right away, there's an SD card slot to let you do just that (up to 32GB).

ENGADGET

Two speakers and a photo-card reader are tucked underneath the ice dispenser, letting users stream Pandora music and load their digital photos to the screen.

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