I'm not sure they advertised accepting prepaid gift cards.

They seem very particular on what kinds of prepaid cards they accept. Some work, some don't. Also, seems like too many attempts may prevent you from being able to add any cards for a while.

Can you dump a $500 VGC at 1 time to Venmo or are there weekly/daily limits? Not planning to use this for MS but have a few VGCs that have been causing issues and trying to dump through this route.

Why don't you try it? ^

The basic answer appears to be "no". I would suggest that you read backwards on this thread for about 2-3 months and you will find a discussion about this topic.

In general, I find that there are certain sites (such as Paypal) that are too valuable for me to mess with by using MS (to any worthwhile extent, at least). Venmo is one of them, BB and Serve were (for me) another. While I am not a heavy user of Venmo, I find that the convenience of using it far outstrip the minimal MS benefits it provides (when taking in the cost of losing it by being banned).

So YMMV but being able to load 4 $500 GCs a year (if you find ones that actually work) isn't worth the risk of losing the service to me.;)

Just used this method to get the TD bank checking acct sign up bonus. So yes - it depends on the bank, but it's definitely worth the try. TD bank shows it as a direct deposit. SO I just had to do it once and received the bonus like 3 or 4 months later.

But there's hardly any GCs that can be loaded to venmo now - and only 4 every 6 months. So this is basically the only good thing Venmo can be used for now days and maybe 4k (8-500 Gcs) in spend sent between 2 accts every 6 months.

You are correct. Of course Venmo can direct deposit into a checking account. This is how they transfer money from them to you. However, one still needs to fund Venmo in order to do that transfer and I do not believe that you can direct deposit funds into Venmo. You can fund Venmo through a bank account (and they will debit the bank account if your Venmo account is less than the charge amount), but you cannot transfer money yourself from your bank account into VM. You can use a CC but there is a 3% charge for it.
This site may explain the funding process even better.

Given all the data breaches, I actually set up a separate bank account just for VM and have funded it minimally in order to limit my exposure if something goes boing in the night.

[QUOTE=pancakeman27;30645451]Just used this method to get the TD bank checking acct sign up bonus. So yes - it depends on the bank, but it's definitely worth the try. TD bank shows it as a direct deposit. SO I just had to do it once and received the bonus like 3 or 4 months later.

/QUOTE]

Thanks for the feedback. I did some Venmo transfers to BofA anyways. The T&C of offer states 60 days after initial 90 day period Bonus will post, so will report back.

Oh yeah - I don't think you can do that. My SO and I both have accounts so we just send it back and forth. And as far as funding goes, if you can't find a GC that works, just use your debit card from another bank and you won't have any fees and then you can get one of the venm0 accts funded and ready to direct deposit into the new bank acc.

I am uncertain as to how the above is MSing.:confused:
In my mind, I buy a GC (say SMGC) with a credit card and then need to monetize it. We use to do this by depositing it into BB or Serve and then paying via BP or check the subsequent CC bill. Or we convert the GC into MOs and deposit them into a bank account.

What people tried to do with Venmo was take the GC and use it on Venmo as their payment method. They then simply transferred the balance of the card out to a bank and withdrew the cash. When the GC balance reached zero, they added a new GC and repeated the process. Venmo caught on quickly and basically has shut down that method of MSing (only 4 GCs per year allowed and only very specific ones at that). Of course numerous people also got banned from Venmo.

So how are you going to fund Venmo now? Using a real bank debit card as your funding source does nothing for MSing. So I am confused how one would even use Venmo at all (except for that modest 4 cards a year per account.)

Right - well the person was asking about getting a checking acct bonus - so I was saying if you can't find a GC that can be loaded, you still can meet the direct deposit requirements this way using a normal debit card.

You're right that isn't MS. In order to do that you need to find the remaining few (if any) GC's that can still be loaded. And like you said, even then - 4 cards per every 6 months isn't a whole lot, but it's something - and it's very easy vs. the MO route.

At the very least, I've used it to meet the minimum spend requirements for cards (usually 3,000) which can be accomplished using 6 cards which is under the 8 card limit sent between two accts every 6 months.

So again I think that I am a bit confused.
I think of "direct deposit" as an ongoing event, such as a paycheck each month or a SS check. I don't think of it as a single non-recurring event. For some reason, that is what I thought banks that give bonuses for opening a new checking account meant by "setting up a direct deposit account". What you are saying is that you only need to make a single "direct deposit" and they will accept that as satisfying the terms and conditions. I didn't know that.
Finally, I have not found it difficult to meet spending requirements for cards using a combination of MS and organic spend. I just obtained a Fidelity 2% CB card and I will easily meet the $2000 spend in 3 months for the $200 bonus.

After my BB beheading, I don't jack around with services I feel are important, such as Venmo and PP.

Yeah - many banks offer bonuses for a direct deposit of 500 or more, which typically comes from an ongoing source, but doesn't have to.

And if venmo is that important to you, then yeah, sounds like you're making the right call. I already passed a close scrutiny with them and sent in documents to verify. After that - no big deal. They have eliminated most GCs anyhow and put a card limit so I don't think they're as worried about MS anymore.

Yeah I haven't touched BB just cuz the shutdowns scare me off. MO's work good enough.