Bluebird prepaid debit, now with FDIC insurance and paper checks (2015)
 

Hi all - I am a new arrival to the US (perm resident, got my SSN in May).

I tried to open a Bluebird account online and got an automatic "we can't verify your information message."

I called the help line and they just said try again a couple of times. In other words, they were no help at all as I kept getting the same message.

Any idea what's up, or a workaround? Could it be related to not having a US drivers license? It seems to make a point of saying make sure your name exactly matches your drivers license.

Thanks for any insights.

My wife had the same issue. We couldn't get a Bluebird or an Amazon Payments account.
Amazon opened the account after we sent in a Drivers license copy and perhaps a utility bill or something like that.

For bluebird we waited several months and applied again and it went through. There must be a delay from when the SSN gets issued to when it makes it into their database.

The only consistent reasons we've seen on this are:

1. Unable to verify ID. This includes unable to match drivers license, SSN, etc.

2. Prior "bad" relationship with AMEX. This includes having accounts closed, charge-offs, etc.

It sounds like you fit squarely in Bucket 1. You might try calling back again and specifically asking about ID requirements. I don't believe there is a requirement that you need a drivers license, but you do need a SSN they can verify. It may be a lag problem as noted. That said, BB customer service is not very helpful, so waiting and trying again in a month may be the only option. Sorry.

Also use a different email address and username when reapplying. Otherwise it will give you an error.

I thought I'd try opening amazon payments and sure enough, same issue. At least I'm not the only one :(

It seems weird if it's just SSN/name/DOB they're using. My SSN was issued 4 months ago, it's not like it was 4 days ago. It was issued to a different address than my current address, so maybe that's the issue.

Am trying to figure out how to get points for a $2K rent payment I need to make. That's my main aim currently.

Curious if anyone opened their BB account by buying the $5 starter kit at WalMart. I wonder if this would help the OP and circumvent the "can't verify information" problem. Just a thought.

My understanding is it will not from the experience I had switching from Serve to BB.

Still no workarounds re Bluebird but I sent an email to Amazon payments asking if I could send in i.d. to verify and they didn't reply but I got an email to say my account was now verified.

Another step in the right direction, after reading flyertalk for years but being unable to really participate in many of the opportunities from outside the US!

Really looking forward to not spending 64,000 QF points earned at $1/point and $hundreds in fuel surcharges to fly one way US > NZ!

My wife got this problem. She has long credit history, however, we just changed address. We got the "Unable to verify information", called BB & was told to re-register again. Now, we got the "you have serve account" which obviously she didn't have. We've called BB & transferred to Serve dept to verify, yet, they still can't solve this.

Is there any other way to solve this beyond waiting for several months?

happened for my wife too. ssn was more than a year old, still could not verify. try different email accounts. and i applied for couple of credit cards , waited for a month and repplaied for bb. no probs then.

chckiwi are you married to a US citizen/Permanent Resident? if the answer is yes, then ask her to add you as an authorized user of her credit card. Another option, get a DL and send a copy to Experian, TransUnion and Equifax.

Thank you for the data point, I guess I'll wait for next month.

Bluebird prepaid debit, now with FDIC insurance and paper checks (2015)
 

Does anybody know if you can load Bluebird at a Canadian Walmart? My searches have yielded nothing. Thank you.

Actually, at my WM they do limit the dollar amount to $1000 per load. My WM will let me do that as many times as I want, though, in separate transactions. I've only ever done it 2x per card though (x2 cards).

Loading Sunrise 200 visa gc bought from Sears to BB
 

Anyone able to load Sunrise 200 visa GC bought from Sears to BB as of yesterday?