The way today's rebates are awarded via a prepaid virtual card / like it or not

John105

John105

Joined
Jul 10, 2022
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It's the way it is today. Buy this and get a prepaid card!

When it's ready, chose virtual or wait 3 weeks for an actual card.

Yes, I go virtual, but have been very nervous lately. Why? Because they'll say use it anywhere Visa or MasterCard are accepted, but it always seems nobody accepts them.

The exception? amazon.com

Great for amazon, buy things using your reward, instead of paying bills.

Just got $50 from KYB.

Last time I got 3 from ACDelco. Man oh man it didn't total $20 and I never say this--not worth the effort lol

It's astounding how many steps to secure these things....

Also what I feel is on purpose--expire in 6 mos from issue date.

p.s. to not have any issues, I just bought a $50 amazon gift card. With the ACDelco since they were rejected by all my utility cos., I gave up and set them aside for a few weeks. Then I had problems with accessing them. I still think they are worth it but I wish I could pay bills. First world problem lol
 
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bdcardinal said:
I would rather get a check.
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I really would--there was a brief time period where it seemed Mobil and Shell Oil process really fast, and offered a virtual check.

The virtual debit card I think has more going on--there has to be imho a collection of personal info and as mentioned, amazon is a sure way to convert into an amazon gift card. Other methods are hit/miss often miss. But as you say, I'd rather put into my bank. OR, even pay a utility.

I've had actual bank gift card rejected by Verizon, they won't accept them.

p.s. what if a person doesn't shop amazon, it's possible.
 
Some rebates go to PayPal. That creates a completely different set of issues, including that the automatic nature of it might make it hard to lodge a complaint if the rebate isn't fulfilled.

I remember when I went on a few job interviews (well - more than just a few) with a major company, the per diem (for everything including outside meals and incidentals) was $60/day but through a prepaid Visa card. But that was only if I had to travel where there was a hotel room stay. However, the prepaid Visa card didn't come until after my interview - every single time. But I was able to use them without issue. It was basically mine to do with as I wanted.
 
y_p_w said:
Some rebates go to PayPal. That creates a completely different set of issues, including that the automatic nature of it might make it hard to lodge a complaint if the rebate isn't fulfilled.

I remember when I went on a few job interviews (well - more than just a few) with a major company, the per diem (for everything including outside meals and incidentals) was $60/day but through a prepaid Visa card. But that was only if I had to travel where there was a hotel room stay. However, the prepaid Visa card didn't come until after my interview - every single time. But I was able to use them without issue. It was basically mine to do with as I wanted.
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Interesting....in 1998/1999 I went on a lot of job interviews, and back then, employers FedEx'd hotel reservations and rental car docs and airline tix. It was a free for all trying to hire before Y2K. I remember missing a flight and I actually felt bad, because I hopped on another flight and it cost the employer a fortune. But again, these virtual prepaid cards for rebates now make me nervous and I feel dumb that it even takes 10 min to get a $50 one setup...
 
Blueshound said:
Neither. I would prefer they just give me a discount at the time of sale.
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Totally understand, this is marketing in 2023. Still gravy to me because I am satisfied with the KYB prices to begin with. In other words, when I got the Bilstein B6's for the other car, there was no rebate, yet I was satisfied with the cost. Some other person may have been on the fence with KYB and with a rebate they buy them...me I compared the price to Lexus OE and thank goodness for the Excel-G's (indie also recommended them, claim comparable to OE)
 
John105 said:
Interesting....in 1998/1999 I went on a lot of job interviews, and back then, employers FedEx'd hotel reservations and rental car docs and airline tix. It was a free for all trying to hire before Y2K. I remember missing a flight and I actually felt bad, because I hopped on another flight and it cost the employer a fortune. But again, these virtual prepaid cards for rebates now make me nervous and I feel dumb that it even takes 10 min to get a $50 one setup...
Click to expand...

As a soon to be grad I interviewed at a few places including on the east coast. One company flew me full fare (over $1300 round trip) from San Francisco to Boston and everything was included but I don't think I filed for any kind of reimbursement. That included a van service to the hotel and all meals were covered. Nothing was really sent to me. I had it all handled by phone. To pick up my tickets, I just had to go to the airport and present my ID at the United Airlines counter and they printed it right there for me. I think these days (of eTickets) I probably would have gotten the confirmation number.

I had a few other interviews that year, including one in the Sacramento area where they gave me a reimbursement form and all I asked for was mileage, even though I had to buy my own lunch. I had one mass interview with a large Silicon Valley employer (same company I talked about earlier - won't name them but I guarantee almost everyone here has heard of them). We were given guidelines for meal reimbursement and other stuff. I ended up requesting one night (instead of two) because I was local, but I stuck around (another interviewee offered his suite's sofabed) for another night since everyone else was socializing. The room was prepaid, but I filled in the form for my mileage, dinner the night before the interview, and breakfast and lunch the day after the interview. It was reimbursed no questions asked even though I went home and had lunch at a really nice place I'd always wanted to try out. For breakfast I drove to a local Starbucks with a couple of my fellow interviewees and I got that reimbursed too. Some of the interviewees were talking about visiting San Francisco before their flights home and charging meals/expenses to the company.

As for this company more recently, I got the same $120 for two days regardless of where, although not at their Silicon Valley location since that's local. I'd rented a car, and it was awesome not having to leave a credit card since everything was prepaid. The corporate travel agency (AmEx) even told me to just return the car without filling it up since they would cover that at their own special rate with the rental agency, and to decline prepaid fuel. I was a little ticked off once when I got the car without a full (or nearly full) tank. That blew my opportunity to just drive it around without having to add fuel taken from those incidentals. A few times my incidentals included public transportation to the airport and dinner the night before the interview, but they at least covered lunch at the site. I did have this weird case where I was told the prescreened made a mistake by not screening me out (I was upfront about my experience) and the interview was cut short after the second interviewer (the hiring manager) figured that out. But I was scheduled for lunch. He did say maybe I could get reimbursed for lunch whatever I wanted, but I knew that it just came out of the incidental card.

The weird thing was that the prepaid card always arrived days after my interview was over. And one weird case was when I had interviews at the same location five days apart. So that was another $240. But the way it usually worked was that the interviewee was supposed to spend out of pocket first, and the prepaid card came later more or less to compensate for it.
 
My main issue with the prepaid cards is that (unlike store gift cards) they don’t take the full card balance off a transaction that’s larger than the card balance. Instead, they just decline entirely. That is, a card with $49.99 left on it won’t apply any of those funds to a $50 purchase (opposed to a gift card, which would apply its available balance and leave the outstanding amount to be paid by another means). Using the last bit on the card seems to be a pain - I’ve had luck prepaying inside of gas stations for the entire remaining balance, then pumping exactly the value of the prepaid card in fuel. That seems to be the easiest way to take it to zero value. But this requires you to keep track of the balance, which is obviously more complicated than just using a bank’s mobile app to deposit a check, which is then entirely fungible.

I’m not the biggest fan of them compared to check-based rebates, but free money is free money.
 
TmanP said:
My main issue with the prepaid cards is that (unlike store gift cards) they don’t take the full card balance off a transaction that’s larger than the card balance. Instead, they just decline entirely. That is, a card with $49.99 left on it won’t apply any of those funds to a $50 purchase (opposed to a gift card, which would apply its available balance and leave the outstanding amount to be paid by another means). Using the last bit on the card seems to be a pain - I’ve had luck prepaying inside of gas stations for the entire remaining balance, then pumping exactly the value of the prepaid card in fuel. That seems to be the easiest way to take it to zero value. But this requires you to keep track of the balance, which is obviously more complicated than just using a bank’s mobile app to deposit a check, which is then entirely fungible.

I’m not the biggest fan of them compared to check-based rebates, but free money is free money.
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I've never really had a problem with that. I managed to zero out quite a few prepaid Visa cards, although I don't remember if a retailer just zeroed out the balance or maybe I had to know the balance and told that to a store clerk. I think on a few occasions I might have told a cashier or server exactly how much to charge against the card. That can supposedly be done for any prepaid or credit card. I might have even done that with multiple small balances on different prepaid cards.

When the balance got really low, I might have marked the balance with a Sharpie on the card.
 
I think I've only gotten a prepaid Visa card rebate once. What I recall was when a belt failed and I had to have my car towed and one reasonable option was a Goodyear tire/service center. I had to guarantee I'd at least pay a $60, but the mechanic specifically told me of the $25 rebate for at least (maybe) $100 in services.

This stuff does cost them a bunch of money in terms of paying someone to handle all this, but then again these often expire and the liability then evaporates. That was the same with physical checks and probably similar with prepaid cards. Not sure how it works with something like rebate to a PayPal account. That might require a lot less human overhead (like processing rebate forms - online or mail). But as far as I know, that money stays there and doesn't get clawed back if it's not used.
 
Blueshound said:
Neither. I would prefer they just give me a discount at the time of sale.
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Very few places do "instant" rebates, which is a shame. They figure they'll entice you into the purchase knowing there's that rebate but then they play the odds that you'll forget to follow through with submitting it.

Edit: Oooops, I see that snagglefoot already said what I just posted 😂
 
y_p_w said:
I've never really had a problem with that. I managed to zero out quite a few prepaid Visa cards, although I don't remember if a retailer just zeroed out the balance or maybe I had to know the balance and told that to a store clerk. I think on a few occasions I might have told a cashier or server exactly how much to charge against the card. That can supposedly be done for any prepaid or credit card. I might have even done that with multiple small balances on different prepaid cards.

When the balance got really low, I might have marked the balance with a Sharpie on the card.
Click to expand...
I have found that the grocery store is the best place to use up prepaid cards. They split the bill and accommodate x dollar to 1 card, then pay the balance with my normal credit card.
 
y_p_w said:
As a soon to be grad I interviewed at a few places including on the east coast. One company flew me full fare (over $1300 round trip) from San Francisco to Boston and everything was included but I don't think I filed for any kind of reimbursement. That included a van service to the hotel and all meals were covered. Nothing was really sent to me. I had it all handled by phone. To pick up my tickets, I just had to go to the airport and present my ID at the United Airlines counter and they printed it right there for me. I think these days (of eTickets) I probably would have gotten the confirmation number.

I had a few other interviews that year, including one in the Sacramento area where they gave me a reimbursement form and all I asked for was mileage, even though I had to buy my own lunch. I had one mass interview with a large Silicon Valley employer (same company I talked about earlier - won't name them but I guarantee almost everyone here has heard of them). We were given guidelines for meal reimbursement and other stuff. I ended up requesting one night (instead of two) because I was local, but I stuck around (another interviewee offered his suite's sofabed) for another night since everyone else was socializing. The room was prepaid, but I filled in the form for my mileage, dinner the night before the interview, and breakfast and lunch the day after the interview. It was reimbursed no questions asked even though I went home and had lunch at a really nice place I'd always wanted to try out. For breakfast I drove to a local Starbucks with a couple of my fellow interviewees and I got that reimbursed too. Some of the interviewees were talking about visiting San Francisco before their flights home and charging meals/expenses to the company.

As for this company more recently, I got the same $120 for two days regardless of where, although not at their Silicon Valley location since that's local. I'd rented a car, and it was awesome not having to leave a credit card since everything was prepaid. The corporate travel agency (AmEx) even told me to just return the car without filling it up since they would cover that at their own special rate with the rental agency, and to decline prepaid fuel. I was a little ticked off once when I got the car without a full (or nearly full) tank. That blew my opportunity to just drive it around without having to add fuel taken from those incidentals. A few times my incidentals included public transportation to the airport and dinner the night before the interview, but they at least covered lunch at the site. I did have this weird case where I was told the prescreened made a mistake by not screening me out (I was upfront about my experience) and the interview was cut short after the second interviewer (the hiring manager) figured that out. But I was scheduled for lunch. He did say maybe I could get reimbursed for lunch whatever I wanted, but I knew that it just came out of the incidental card.

The weird thing was that the prepaid card always arrived days after my interview was over. And one weird case was when I had interviews at the same location five days apart. So that was another $240. But the way it usually worked was that the interviewee was supposed to spend out of pocket first, and the prepaid card came later more or less to compensate for it.
Click to expand...
Sounds posh. One time I got lunch with an interview. No reimbursement for mileage, though, and I didn't get the job.
 
Blueshound said:
Neither. I would prefer they just give me a discount at the time of sale.
Click to expand...
Bingo.
I almost never do rebates anymore unless the terms are incredible and easy. Most rebates anymore have you spending 2 hours of aggravation spread over many months, to get $7. This includes scanning things, signing up for accounts, having to create a dedicated junk mail email account, getting spammed into perpetuity, keeping an eye on your junk mail account, hopefully you will get the rebate, then going thru 5 tiers of steps to activate it, basically can only use it at Amazon, going thru those steps...

It just is not worth it to me. Especially all the spam emails.
 
Blueshound said:
Sounds posh. One time I got lunch with an interview. No reimbursement for mileage, though, and I didn't get the job.
Click to expand...

I don't know about posh. Most of the time someone was assigned to take me to the cafeteria at lunch, and typically they had two vouchers. I think once we had lunch in a conference room that was catered, and there was another candidate (nor sure if it was for the same job). That got kind of bizarre because they had enough for about 15 people and there were lots of people who obviously weren't interviewing either of us. I suppose.

Years ago a company information packet might also have a standard reimbursement form. They were typically the same that actual employees got for company business trips. Hotels almost always had included breakfast. I've been to one site at least 5 times with hotel stays and maybe 4 different hotels. I think one place the travel agent was confused about whether or not breakfast was included, but when I checked in I had a voucher for it.

But it was incredible renting a car with nothing but my driver license. Everything was covered. If the car was stolen, the company would have covered it without even a deductible charged to me. And the incidental per diem more than covered everything else. I never spent more than $40 out of pocket for any kind of meals or other travel expenses for any one interview.
 
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