Introduction
I had given up on MS for a while, but I remembered I still had 50K of OBC bandwidth to use up before the end of the year. Thus, I trudged to Safeway and Kroger and bought the US Bank Mastercards. The old purple and gold packaged ones direct you to the better site mygiftcardsite.com to register the cards (for online use.) The newer ones direct you to the shitty prepaidgiftbalance.com. After registering a few cards, you’ll get this error:
At first I thought the web site was down, so I tried it again in a few days and it still gave me that error. I eventually called the number on the back of the card, which then sent me a text message that led to a web site where I registered the card successfully. I then fired up Opera with it’s built in VPN and was able to register the card just fine. Thus, the stupid prepaidgiftbalance.com has some sort of velocity limit per IP address. When you get hit with the error, try these steps:
- Download Opera and use it’s native VPN built into the browser
- Download a free VPN service
- Go to the shitty site on your phone and register that way
- As a last resort, you can call and register, which takes a long time.
There may be other ways, but those were the ones I tried.
Edit – Firefox now has a free built in VPN as well to use with this
Hi, try turning off your adblocker and reloading the site. Worked just fine after I did.
i am just now having that problem :/ I JUST WANNA BUY VBUCKS MAN 🙁
I usually buy a MasterCard prepaid card. The new website “prepaidgiftbalance” is complete garbage that is often inoperable. Latest card was a Visa purchased by someone for me via convenience. This card won’t let me buy from certain websites. Garbage. Also, the “prepaidgiftbalance” website won’t let you edit your name with the edit option; but, it’ll let you edit everything else. Again, garbage.
anyone got a soulution to when prepaidgiftbalance.com just kicks u back to the home page?
I would like a solution to this as well.
CALL THE NUMBER ON THE BACK OF YOUR CARD (18888539536) AND THEN PRESS (0)!!!! IT WILL TRANSFER YOU TO A REAL CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSON!! THEY SNEAKILY DONT TELL YOU THIS BUT I FIGURED IT OUT BY PRESSINGS NUMBERS UNTIL SOMETHING HAPPENED!
This didn’t work for me, it forces me to put my card number in or else it kicks me out. I’m not trying to find out my balance, I’m trying to activate it and the website is down or something.
hi! sorry this is months later but I just ran in to the same problem. I was typing in the code on the front of the package (that was not in the envelope). When you open the envelope to grab the physical card, it is a different 16 digit code. Hope this helps
i have the same fucking problem
Some updates as of 6-23-20… Opera VPN is automatically blocked. Firefox, if they have a VPN, it seems very difficult if not impossible to locate/setup/use. A separate program called Tunnel Bear is the easiest and best by far. Free to download. Can use with any browser such as Firefox. 500MB per month limit on the free plan. Plenty of data if you’re just activating a few gift cards. Works perfect. Can setup in a matter of 3min even if you know very little about computers. Setup is funny. Says stuff like “brushing fur” instead of unzipping files. lol Had a bunch of cards to activate. Seemed to block the IP that was working after a while. No sweat. Just disconnect. Reconnect to get a new IP. And then start right back up. Worked fine after that to finish off the rest of the activations. So to summarize, Tunnel Bear is the perfect solution. Wouldn’t have thought of the idea though without your article/post. So thank you for your contribution!
I was using another free VPN for a while too. What will eventually happen is if more people use the VPN, then that IP will be ‘blocked’ if someone used it before you. But if it works, go for it.
Recently had a very negative experience with this company. Got a safeway offer for mastercard and bought the cards 3 worked and one was not registering. Finally called customer service and they activated it. I asked for reason and they indicated pre-activity. Further the agent indicates to hold on indicated she is checking with someone to ensure it’s activated. She indicates everything good.
I go back to site and check the balance and registration info (name and address), everything good. I try transacting at night and bam card declined. Check the site again, see a fraud transaction that too at a restaurant in my own city.
I call number of times to raise the issue, first attempt they indicate transaction should get posted (well they don’t want to take immediate action to prevent further fraud and get immediate information from merchant – these days its easy to track – videos of person transacting at the counter/online delivery to specific address etc.).
Anyways I call after transaction is posted and takes number of calls to get to fraud department. Who keeps working in 19th century with snail mail and fax documents. No online system or email to submit documents.(Meanwhile the site stops accepting the card to check balances – instead of freezing the card altogether they freeze users ability to check balance, genuine user cant check balance while fraudster is allowed to transact).
Also transaction appears a POS transaction (could be online as well), hopefully they ask merchant to provide their security camera photos as well instead of just receipt and transaction id.
Now waiting for dispute paper to come via mail and then send them back (low possibility that anything positive will come out of the claim). Interestingly for lost and damaged card they have good policy (at least written) to reissue the amount with some charges, however for fraud ones they want to dispute and make customers wait as well as potentially not reimburse anything!
Anyways my loss is not a lot ~100$. And I have decided to not buy master cards from this company (visa cards from blackhawk company works so well- never had an issue). Even mastercard from http://www.consumercardaccess.com have worked very well. So if you buy from this company just use the card immediately!
One of the top hits on google. Answered my question! thanks Vihn
What do you like to buy online with the gift cards? Maybe you don’t want to discuss this publicly? If so, Can I ask you about this confidentially? I’m in search of improved methods for unloading.
Lela
There’s a reason I bought MASTERCARDS…
Cute 🙂 Very cute 🙂 I suspect I have an idea about what you might be talking about, but I am going on a sailing trip, so I’m not going to pursue it just right now. After I get back I think I should look you up and see if you still offer that “pay to consult with you deal.” Or try to con you into joining a me at a meetup 😉 I can be pretty cute! And I have a winning smile! Very useful for getting things. Maybe I can fetch something for you somewhere where you don’t want them to recognize you- Haha!
google plastiq/masterpass/mastercard deal up to $250, which IIRC, ends 9/30
Thank you!
Hi Vinh, Why did you decide to take a break from MS?
Liquidation challenges
These cards are NOT worth the hassle. My came inactive and even though I got the activation codes, the website never worked for me. I had to call in 2 separate times to ‘activate’ the cards, even then they would only work for that day. Plus certain websites/businesses wouldn’t even take them. What a crappy product.
By the way, these were bought from Staples.com, but issued by US Bank as well. Never again.
Staples cards are known to be easily hacked and go to mygiftcardsite.com and not this crappy site. Different beast.
Mine say prepaidgiftbalance.com on the back the card and the activation sticker.
I am with you (just got scammed – this company’s security system seems lacking that they are not able to reduce fraud or at least resolve customer issue immediately)
“As a last resort, you can call and register”.
Doesn’t work from my cell or home numbers. But calling with Skype works!
Odd cuz they sent me a text message on my smartphone and that worked
Two years later and I am struggling with that crap prepaidgiftbalance.com site. I downloaded Opera and tried accessing it with the VPN. I got a message saying I did not have permission to access the site. Without VPN I get the same issue as with Chrome and IE saying my browser is out of date and then upon entering my card info it says there is a problem with my card. There is not as I was able to call and register and make online purchases.
You can use LTE on your phone to browse to the site and activate a few more cards that way.