Major problems with prepaid credit card provider

Aristotle67

This is my first post and so apologies if this is in the wrong place; if so, please move it to the appropriate location. It is complicated, but here it is as concisely as I can make it.

I hold a Primary prepaid Maestro card issued by a building society through a third party card provider. I use this to transfer funds to secondary prepaid Maestro cards held by other people. They then use the funds accordingly.

The card issuers have switched their cards from Maestro to Mastercard and cardholders have been forced to upgrade. I did not want to do so, but had little choice.

One of the secondary cardholders enjoyed a spate of goodluck through gaming and ended up with a balance on their secondary Maestro card of over £15,000. I enquired of the card issuer what was the best thing to do regarding this balance. The card issuer advised upgrading to Mastercard, stated that the Maestro would still be active until the Mastercard was activated, and advised withdrawing the balance from the secondary Maestro to my newly issued primary Mastercard.

I followed the instructions for doing this, having taken screenshots of all the cards and their balances.

The balance of over £15,000 left the secondary Maestro; it did not turn up on the primary Mastercard.

I contacted the card issuer whose CS chap advised that the problem was that there is a maximum balance on any card of £3,500. I explained that this was rubbish as they had allowed over £15,000 to be accumulated on the Maestro card. He said he would get back to me.

The following day I had not heard from him. I looked at my account online, and discoverd that my primary and all the secondary cards had been cancelled. There was no sign of the £15,000 on any card.

I contacted the card issuer; they have said "they cannot discuss my account at this stage".

I have contacted the building society who issue the card through the provider. They say they cannot discuss the account at this stage.

The secondary cardholder has contacted the card issuer regarding the transfer. The card issuer stated that they were unable to complete the transaction and had no further information at the time. The secondary cardholder has demanded to know what has happened to the £15,000 and why, if the transaction cannot be completed, the funds have not been returned to her card. This request has been ignored.

I do not know what to do to find out what has happened to the £15,000, why the cards have been cancelled, and how to get the building society and card issuer to talk to me. I have no experience in dealing with banks having never had any difficulties before.

I find this a totally unacceptable and intolerable situation. If anyone can offer any advice and/or thoughts, it would be appreciated. Thanks.

hippey

One would suggest if the 'cant discuss it at this stage' they are looking at your account closely.

Maybe they suspect fraud? If you have screenshots of your balances then you have some proof you had the funds at that point in time, so make on offical complaint about the situation.

paulofessex

You may find you have a visit from the police as the card issuers may be covering their backs if they suspect fraud etc. Best to keep hold of any documentation you have and details of when and whom you spoke too during calls to CS
Hopefully it will be resolved asap for you l know l would be going of my head also if it happended to me

benoit

I would expect such a large sum of money suddenly appearing on the card is bound to set the money laundering alarm bells off. Is there any reason why the money wasn't put in a normal bank account in the form of a cheque?

Aristotle67

Thanks for the quick and useful responses, guys.

I have got screenshots of the balances before the trouble started and statements of all the transactions which clearly detail where the funds came from, and when. The funds on the secondary card appeared gradually as not all the luck occurred at the same time. It is all legitimate winnings and there is no question of fraud.

I guessed that suspicions might have been aroused but if it is checked out by the card issuer they will see that it is all above board. But in any case, they were happy to allow the balance to accumulate on the secondary card which suggested to me that they didn't have an issue with the amount of funds. The problem arose when, after enquiring of them, they said to migrate the balance from the secondary to the primary; so that is what I did. This is why it wasn't withdrawn to a bank account by cheque.

I am now wondering if it isn't possible to migrate from secondary to primary and that the card issuer has now realised this and isn't sure what to do? If that is so, then I can accept that and if they pay the money back to the secondary card I can take it from there. But it would be nice if they could tell me that instead of saying they cannot discuss!

jonesMUFCforever

You are wrong - accumulating the funds on the card is one thing - spending it as you have found out is something else.

What you are doing would make me highly suspicious - IMO don't expect to get your money back for quite some time.

ElkyElky

Why didn't you use a bank account for these transactions?

CannyJock

We do try and warn people about large credit balances on their accounts - couple of posts recently where people have been fortunate enough to get accidental credit balances transferred directly to their current accounts without any fee but as OP has found out, there can be problems.

Aristotle67

Thanks for to those who have made subsequent comments; I'll respond to each of these briefly:

You are wrong - accumulating the funds on the card is one thing - spending it as you have found out is something else.

What you are doing would make me highly suspicious - IMO don't expect to get your money back for quite some time.

That is rather worrying. I have written to them in the form of a complaint and am prepared to take legal action against them if I have to. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that, of course.

Why didn't you use a bank account for these transactions?

Wish I had now. I guess it was for the reasons which most people use prepaid cards, and it seemed like a good idea at the time!

We do try and warn people about large credit balances on their accounts - couple of posts recently where people have been fortunate enough to get accidental credit balances transferred directly to their current accounts without any fee but as OP has found out, there can be problems.

I don't mind paying a fee for this, especially if it speeds things up.

benoit

Silly question but would there happen to be a maximum limit you are allowed to load onto a pre paid card in a day/week? Could that have something to do with this do you think?

omen666

benoit wrote: »

I would expect such a large sum of money suddenly appearing on the card is bound to set the money laundering alarm bells off. Is there any reason why the money wasn't put in a normal bank account in the form of a cheque?

This!

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

You are wrong - accumulating the funds on the card is one thing - spending it as you have found out is something else.

What you are doing would make me highly suspicious - IMO don't expect to get your money back for quite some time.

you dont half post some !!!! posts sometime without foundation