How to Refund a Prepaid Credit Card

Many people have fallen in love with prepaid credit cards. These credit cards reduce the need for carrying cash. They also present less of a personal risk if you lose them. The most you lose is the amount you prepaid onto the card. To limit risk, many people only purchase prepaid credit cards for a small amount of money. So, when they use up that money the card is useless right? That is not necessarily correct. Here are some ways to refund your prepaid credit card so you have additional spending power.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Your prepaid credit card
• Internet access
• Bank

1. Visit the issuing bank. One of the easiest ways to refund or "refuel" your prepaid credit card is to visit the bank that issued the card. Let them know you would like to add money onto your prepaid credit card. Many banks won't advertise this service. Just give them the amount of cash you would like added to your prepaid credit card and they will add this to your prepaid credit card's available balance.

2. Visit the Internet website of the provider of your prepaid credit card. Many of these websites will allow you to transfer funds online to your prepaid credit card. This way you can refund your prepaid credit card. One website which does this regularly is PayPal. You can actually connect your prepaid PayPal card to your PayPal account. Then you can withdraw cash from your bank account that is connected to your PayPal account into that PayPal account. Your money is then available to use with your PayPal prepaid credit card. You can refund your card as often as you like.This works great for college students away from home receiving money from their parents.

3. Visit your local grocery store. Some of the coin changing machines are now giving you prepaid credit cards with the prepaid balance being the coins you redeemed in their coin counting machine. You can return to that coin counting machine with additional coins to be counted and added to your card. All you have to do is insert your coins into the counting unit and wait for your total to appear. The coin counting machine will then offer to let you add this balance onto your prepaid credit card that you received previously.

4. Visit the retailer that your gift card originally came from. Yes, retailers are now treating gift cards as prepaid credit cards. When you receive a gift card and you use up your balance you are able to "reload" or refund that card. Most retailers will even allow you to add more money to the card than the original value of the gift card. In effect this is how retailers themselves will allow you to have prepaid credit cards. Of course this version of a prepaid credit card is only available for redemption at that retailer.

Tips & Warnings

• Ask your bank if they will allow you to reload your prepaid credit card. Many offer this service, but do not advertise that they allow you to do it.
• Be careful with these prepaid credit cards. Most issuers offer very limited, if any protection if your prepaid credit card is lost or stolen.