I’ve got some bad news for those of you that are in the market of manufactured spending. While not as common anymore, there are still plenty of people that buy gift cards in large quantities hoping to redeem them to get some free points. One of the ways people were doing so was through Plastiq, a service that lets you pay for things with a credit card/debit card that normally don’t allow you to such as mortgage/rent payments or even student loans. However, we have a piece of news that makes manufactured spending that much harder.
The News
Starting January 1st, 2020, Plastiq will no longer accept prepaid debit cards on their systems. This includes any sort of gift cards, or even reloadable debit cards. The only exception to this is businesses that have prepaid debit cards or payroll cards; those two will still work on their system.
Final Thoughts
With more and more people getting into the credit game every single day, it makes it harder to hide things such as these. As much as we like to pretend card issuers don’t know, they know exactly when you’re buying gift cards. Plastiq is making it harder if you do find a way to circumvent other systems. You’ll have to redeem those cards in a different way.
I’m wondering if Plastiq’s hand was forced in this. They like to play by any rules that credit institutions want to impose. Because Plastiq was probably the most popular service, maybe credit card issuers are teaming up to slow down gift card purchases in other more indirect ways?
What do you think about Plastiq’s new policy? Will you still be using the service now that they will no longer allow prepaid debit cards? Let us know down in the comment section below!
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