Hello! My wife bought a netspend prepaid card by mistake, thinking it was a gift card. She paid with cash AND doesn't have the receipt I called Family Dollar and it sounds like they won't return them even with the receipt. When I go to activate the card it wants all my personal data before we can activate it.

Anyone else dealt with a similar situation? Could I just setup a bogus email account and fill out the account with bogus information just to get the balance off the card?

Isn’t it just a prepaid debit card that you activate with your info that identifies yourself as the owner? Maybe I don’t understand the concept, but why wouldn’t you activate it and use it like a credit card until you reduce the balance down to zero and then destroy it? If you can’t get the balance all the way to zero with spending, just buy Amazon gift card credit for yourself with whatever is leftover. Just an idea.

These are for people with bad credit, or can't get a bank account I'm guessing. Netspend makes money on these by charging fees to have an account. You can add more money to them.

When I went to activate the card I ended up here.


Not knowing what happens beyond that point I haven't went any further with it. Doing some checking it seems that there is a return option on the netspend site but it's automated. I don't want to end up deactivating it without knowing what happens if I go that route. Though it probably is the only course of action I have without setting up an account with them. Setting up a bogus account probably isn't an option either, as that initial activation page is just a primer to them wanting a whole lot more verifiable information to get their hooks into someone.

Make a fake email and fake info. Then add the cards balance to your amazon account.

quote:

Originally posted by Chowser:
Make a fake email and fake info. Then add the cards balance to your amazon account.

That was my first thought too, but it likely will require some verifiable info to actually activate the card.

quote:

Originally posted by xantom:

quote:

Originally posted by Chowser:
Make a fake email and fake info. Then add the cards balance to your amazon account.

That was my first thought too, but it likely will require some verifiable info to actually activate the card.

Sign up for a dummy email account on aol or other email provider and use that.

What Rey said. Then you can find out if they want info you do not want to give.

Since it is a prepaid card, you could still provide it to someone as a gift.

The recipient would have to provide their info, but at least it is one way of redeeming the value.

They want you to setup an account because it is a reloadable debit card that you can log in and transfer money to. If I were you I would call them, and tell them you just want to activate it so you can give it to somebody as a give. Worst case they should let you cash out the card with a check to you.