Buy a coke with it once every week or two. You lose a minuscule amount in fees but keep the debit police off your back.

Load it as they hoped everyone would with cash and spend whats on it via the way they hoped people w/o credit would = generating tons of $$ in fees

Can you get three of these cards at once or do you have to wait until 1 is closed to get another?

I'm coming late to the game here guys - so would really appreciate a quick answer to a few questions that I'm sure have been asked before, but I really can't parse through 100+ pages of thread.

1) If I understand you can make PIN based debit transactions for a 50 cents fee, correct?

2) Is there a maximum limit per purchase, per day, or per month? If for instance, you have 5K loaded to the card, can you make a PIN based purchase for 5K?

3) What is the current consensus on Cash Advance at a bank with your permanent card? I have never done a CA at a bank before. What does the bank charge for this service? What does MVD charge? Will most banks do this (Chase, BOA, etc)? Are there usually limits associated with it?

thanks very much - this will help me get up to speed.

1) Yes
2) No need to parse it is in the MVD FAQ
3) Variable based on bank, ask them. MVD FAQ will give you the answers.

Sadly, being late to the game on this one is not good. Looks like the party is ending.

I have had 5 cards shut down in the last 2 days with hardly any activity as I have been going 'much slower' based on reports here and elsewhere.

thanks, I had looked at the FAQ but didn't find that particular limit. It was within the cardholder agreement however.

"The maximum amount that can be spent on your Card per day is $3,000.00"

Would the "Over the Counter Cash Withdrawal" fee of $1.95 be what MVD charges for a CA at a bank?

I have only 1 MVD card and is reactivated then flushed at 0 balance.
I am putting MVD in the closet. I have decided to do MO at Walmart using Onevanilla prepaid, will cost me $1/500 extra but my money will not be held/hostage, because I am using 5 typ citi card additional cost is insignificant. Anyone with a better alternative?

BenH -- Yes, that is what MVD charges. I think most banks are free, at least my local CU was free. I also wouldnt expect to last that long doing CAs. Seems people are getting in like 2 before getting shutdown.

Thanks.

One other question. I see going through the last 10 or so pages of this thread the talk of a $45K yearly limit. I can't find this mentioned anywhere official. How is this known and what exactly is it a limit on?

Also, let me share a story with you all about my NetSpend card, since InComm issues both of these. I have been using my NS for only about 3 months. I loaded about 7K in VRs over the past couple months. Yesterday I found out that another poster who started at the same time as me had his account shut down. I logged on last night and found that my account was in a locked state.

I called this morning and told them the site instructed me to call in. I was told by the rep that my account was locked due to "credit card rewards program abuse." She was obviously reading off a script or whatever the screen said, and when I played dumb she could not really give me much information (other than their systems detected it).
The point here is - that InComm clearly knows, 100% what we are doing and they actually flag it as "Credit Card Rewards program abuse."

What is more interesting is that how does this affect InComm? Seemingly, they don't lose money with these accounts. In fact, they earn money on any balance in the accounts plus whatever occasional transaction fees we have. In the past, we have thought that they were shutting us down because our patterns looked like money laundering. Well, that is not the case. They know we aren't laundering, they know we are taking advantage of rewards - and they are trying to stop it.

Other than them being a partnership with various CC companies, why would they care what is going on here? Again, the fact that we have thousands of dollars at various times during the month - if even for a few days increases their holdings and balance sheet.

But - the most interesting thing of all was that I got her to unlock the account. I got a warning that my patterns should not continue, but other than that nothing was needed.

Yeah it seems they are really starting to crack down on what is going on. :td:

Hmm looks like this is dead then...is it dead even if i want to to meet small amounts for minimum spend?

I think it is possible they are losing money. We don't understand the whole model, but do you think CVS really only collects a mere $3.95 on these and is happy to take the cost and risk sell them like candy in CC transactions? We know with 3rd party store GCs the merchant collects a big % of the face value. The store takes that loss because they know they profit on the back-end after the user buys the GC. My bet is VRs work the same to a lesser degree. Even if CVS only collected 1% of the face value, that's $25 InComm kicks back to CVS for 5 VRs. Now you go CA or PIN debit that out in one shot, InComm never gets anywhere near $25 back in that process. And of course there are the extra administrative costs (mailing out a card, dealing with us on the phone, etc.) For all we know they could be losing alot of money on us.

I got the money out of all my accounts, both of which are now shutdown. I can't load anymore. I had a card in spend down that I was able to load, but they eliminated that. I'm debating whether I should open a 3rd card, but it looks like they are cracking down fairly quickly now.

It may be possible. On the one hand, I can't see how they would sell VR cards if they were taking a loss on them by themselves.

If you buy a $500 card + $3.95 fee. If the store keeps the entire $3.95, that isn't even enough to cover a credit card transaction even if they pay only 1%. I have to think that these large chains have a much lower negotiated rate for CC transactions for this to work. If not, then the are loosing probably like $5 per $500 card on transaction fees.

Assuming the store is eating this - why would they even carry cards that can be loaded that high? I would think that the maximum they would allow to load is a break-even for transnational cost. This may be why Staples limits Visas to $200 now.

Assuming that Incomm gets the full $500 they are at a net loss from the get go because they have the cost of manufacturing, distributing, and keeping up the infrastructure. But they have this cost regardless. Whether I buy a $50 card or a $500 card, they just get face value.

So they pay for their effort with the fees they earn on their cards. And, as we know - most of us pay very little or no fees on these cards. Even so, the lack of our fees doesn't affect all the other fees they are making. Our transactions are just a few more lines in their database, the biggest cost that I can see that we place on them is maybe in manufacture/distribution of the cards. If it costs them 5 cents a card to manufacture and distribute, then for every 10,000 in cards I buy I cost them $1. Even with large scale I can't see those costs not being offset by a transaction fee.

Additionally, even cards that have a monthly fee of like $5 (like some NS variants) seemingly are intolerant of this behavior.

If anyone is loosing substantial $$ I think it has to be the retail stores - and they can easily stop that by limiting their load amounts or not accepting CC. The economy of scale that the Incomm's have is to the extent that I don't see us being a drain on them.

Look at it this way. What behavior would they prefer for purchasing? That I pay $3.95 to load only $25 to a VR? Well, if the store keeps that $3.95 fee, Incomm still only gets $25 maximum. So whether we buy masses of $25 cards or one $500, doesn't Incomm still make the same (barring the nickel costs per card)?

I understood it when they thought we were money laundering...it was a risk issue for them (and not really a risk of loosing money, but rather being in regulatory compliance). But now, they acknowledge that it isn't risky - that we are just using their system to load/unload. What skin is it off their back? They get to float our money for a few days or weeks, and get the concessional transaction fee.

I think that they must have some industry pressure from the CC to be auditing this way. The only other thing I can think of is that there are additional transaction charges for moving the money in and out of the card that we are unaware of. It would be really interesting to see some numbers from these companies as to the average amount balance, fees received, transaction amount, etc. I have to think that even with all of us, we don't account for that large of their volume.

You make so much sense, Who U think should lose the job and fat bonus!