Visa Pre-paid debit cards for fun and profit?

I was at my local Kroger grocery store last night and noticed that they sell Visa Pre-Paid debit cards in amounts up to $500 with a $4.95 activation fee (See: usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/prepaid-card-faq.html) These cards use a PIN when making purchases. Using Visa's retail locator they sell them at Walgreens, CVS, and some gas stations. Various credit cards offer 3%-5% CashBack/points at these retailers. I have not tried yet, but I would think that I can purchase the Visa Pre-Paid Debit Cards with a credit card, possibly at Kroger's self check out machines.

Since they use a PIN, I can then cash out the card to a money order at the post office or gas station. I can then deposit the money order into my check account to pay off the credit card that was used to purchase the debit card while collecting the reward CashBack/points. Rinse, Repeat.

Has anyone tried doing this? If so, were you successful?

There is a limit. You have to register the card before they give you a pin.
The companies limit you to 3 or so registered cards.

In my experience, Kroger actually requires you to buy with cash any cards that are marked as such (go figure), and IIRC these cards are labelled as cash only on the packaging. Although I could be wrong and either way YMMV so it's certainly worth a shot.

I've also always been asked to produce ID when buying similar products at Kroger, so I don't think you'll be able to use self-checkout without interacting with the attendant.

On a side note, check your receipt for possible extra rewards.

debtinator said:   imbatman said:   There is a limit. You have to register the card before they give you a pin.
The companies limit you to 3 or so registered cards.

Could you elaborate on this a bit - I always wondered what people did with the empty 500 debit cards - can you close em down?

If there's a limit, it's tied to your SSN, and is reloadable. You can close them, but they still count against the max total.

So I take it people aren't churning with these prepaid debits then, or maybe I'm missing something about reloading them other than vanilla rewards.

lorymills1 said:   I wish someone would clearly explain the differences between the vanilla reload, AMEX reload, visa/mastercard gift cards, greendot money pack and all the others out there. I'm trying to decipher the conversations with being "spoonfed" but you all are making my head spin. I would volunteer to do a cute lil chart with the pros cons and details of each if someone would just help me understand Also, I promise to include pics (of each card) lol

There's a vast difference between all of them. The best thing you can do if you want to understand them is to google each of them and read the T&C. That's what I did. I don't know the rules for all of them, but I know the rules for the ones I've chosen to utilize.

there's also no such thing as an AMEX reload card.

So is the AMEX prepaid for Barnes and Noble Campus Edition. Similar products, and completely different rules.
Also different from the normal AMEX prepaid.

imbatman said:   So is the AMEX prepaid for Barnes and Noble Campus Edition. Similar products, and completely different rules.
Also different from the normal AMEX prepaid.I recently loaded an AMEX prepaid with a VR when I was having BB issues. I feel comfortable calling it a reloadable card. No wonder there's confusion out there

lorymills1 said:   if google faces DDoS attacks, we are all gonna die
I find askjeeves to be adequate

imbatman said:   lorymills1 said:   if google faces DDoS attacks, we are all gonna die
I find askjeeves to be adequate AltaVista FTW.