Let me start this post with an important point. I do not recommend anything in here as a regular manufactured spending strategy, Paypal has a big history of shutting people down so don’t mess with them. I also did a search of our forum, don’t think I’m killing any deals.

When I was signing up for FT4RL2 today, I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed before. I’m not sure this is a Tagging Miles WTLW kind of situation, but I don’t remember ever reading about this before, so I thought I’d share.

As I was checking out, I saw a little note that said “Paypal now accepts prepaid cards”. Wut? So I did some digging, and Paypal has indeed been taking prepaid cards since November of last year. Like I said, this is NOT good for MS, but I think it is useful if you have some leftover money you need to liquidate off a prepaid card for a legitimate purpose.

Adding a prepaid card to your wallet is simple – you just add it like any other credit/debit card – it’s just a separate tab. What I did notice was that I wasn’t allowed to use my card when my Paypal balance could cover the cost of what I was paying for. But when I increased the cost to something more than what I have in my account, it allows me to use my prepaid card to cover the rest.

So is this useful? I think it is – I sometimes check out using Paypal and if I need to liquidate a couple of bucks remaining on a prepaid card I think this would be a nice and easy way to do it. My plan going forward is to use Paypal to liquidate the 10 or 15 bucks I sometimes have leftover on a card on a legitimate purchase. AKA, how I think Paypal intends prepaid cards to be used. Still, I literally just saw this today, so I’d love to hear if people have any experience!