[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="270" caption="Bluebird prepaid card"]
[/caption] Wal-mart and American Express have started a joint venture to sell prepaid Bluebird cards, stamped with AmEx's familiar blue and white logo. It will be sold online and at Wal-mart's 3,925 stores in the U.S. Prepaid cards are not debit cards, they are not linked to any account, the card user just loads cash onto the card, and then uses the card to buy things.
This is an attractive market for Wal-mart, prepaid cards are growing more than twice as fast as credit- and debit cards. The top 50 prepaid cards issuers sold $79.9 billion worth of purchases in 2011, up 25% from 2010.
Now, what are the scams you can expect? There are too many to contemplate. One scheme that is easy to predict is that the bad guys will set up complete fake websites that look just like the AmEx/Wal-mart one where they sell the bluebird card online, promote this site with zillions of spam and tell people they can order cards online with their credit card. When the victim fills out the form, their credit card information is stolen and used for fraud. The potential for fraud is only limited by the creativity of the bad guys who now want to benefit of a main brand moving into the until now a bit murky prepaid market. Wall Street Journal has much more about this new announcement.
[/caption] Wal-mart and American Express have started a joint venture to sell prepaid Bluebird cards, stamped with AmEx's familiar blue and white logo. It will be sold online and at Wal-mart's 3,925 stores in the U.S. Prepaid cards are not debit cards, they are not linked to any account, the card user just loads cash onto the card, and then uses the card to buy things.This is an attractive market for Wal-mart, prepaid cards are growing more than twice as fast as credit- and debit cards. The top 50 prepaid cards issuers sold $79.9 billion worth of purchases in 2011, up 25% from 2010.
Now, what are the scams you can expect? There are too many to contemplate. One scheme that is easy to predict is that the bad guys will set up complete fake websites that look just like the AmEx/Wal-mart one where they sell the bluebird card online, promote this site with zillions of spam and tell people they can order cards online with their credit card. When the victim fills out the form, their credit card information is stolen and used for fraud. The potential for fraud is only limited by the creativity of the bad guys who now want to benefit of a main brand moving into the until now a bit murky prepaid market. Wall Street Journal has much more about this new announcement.
