Newbie guide to manufactured spending: Paypal My Cash Reload Card

February 18, 2014

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Ariana Arghandewal

Reload Limit: $500 per day/$4,000 per month

Fees: $3.95 fee per card

Where to buy: CVS, 711

How to Cash Out: ATM, Bank Transfer, Cash back at grocery store registers, Money order, Square Cash

Often a great substitute if your local CVS isn’t stocking Vanilla Reload cards (UPDATE: Vanilla Reloads are no longer sold as of April 1, 2015), Paypal My Cash Reload cards can be loaded onto the Paypal Business Debit MasterCard and cashed out via various means. I would avoid doing bank transfers, or do them sparingly to avoid account closure. Paypal Reload cards come in increments of up up to $500 and have a $3.95 fee.

Newbie Guide to Manufactured Spending

There is a 7-11 in San Francisco that accepts credit cards on Paypal Reload cards, so if you have an Ink Bold/Plus or any card with a category bonus at gas stations, you will earn 2-6 points per $1 spent.

Additionally, the PayPal Business Debit MasterCard offers 1% cash back on all signature-based purchases. A great way to take advantage of this would be to unload the card via Amazon Payments. Not only do you not incur fees for doing it this way, but on $500 you would earn $5, which effectively cancels out the $3.95 purchase fee. I’m currently putting this to the test with Amazon Payments to see if it works or not. If you’ve tried this yourself, please comment with your results.

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34 responses to “Newbie guide to manufactured spending: Paypal My Cash Reload Card”

jammanxc

February 18, 2014

Be careful with Paypal, they will shut you down fast!

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1. PointChaser
  
  February 18, 2014
  
  Important to note. I’m very careful with this one.
  
  Reply
Rambo

February 18, 2014

Why would you want to use this card for AP? It is using a 1% cash back card when you could be using others cards like arrival (2.2%) or other airlines cards which are much more valuable. I would just use this in WM to pay bills or MO.

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1. PointChaser
  
  February 18, 2014
  
  I’d use it for manufactured spending, and the 1% is just an extra perk when for unloading the balance.
  
  Reply
venezolanoviajero

February 18, 2014

I use it to get cash back when I go grocery shopping and to buy MO at the same time. Been doing it for months without any issues.

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1. PointChaser
  
  February 18, 2014
  
  Good to know!
  
  Reply
WeddingSpend

February 18, 2014

With the PayPal Business Debit MasterCard, you might as well load $1k a month to Bluebird rather than cash out via Amazon Payments. It’s easy to set the auto-reload to take the max $100 a day for 10 days, and you earn 1% cash back so $10.

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1. PointChaser
  
  February 18, 2014
  
  Except, I need my Bluebird for the Vanilla Reloads. Squarecash is also good – no out of pocket and you don’t have to go to Walmart (a huge plus).
  
  Reply
  1. WeddingSpend
    
    February 19, 2014
    
    The debit $1k a month limit is in addition to the regular $5k a month limit so you can load $1k a month without canibalizing your $5k Vanilla Reloads for a total of $6k a month per Bluebird.
    
    Reply
CL

February 18, 2014

Hi. Can you msg me the 7-11 in sf? They all tell me cash. Thanks so much! 🙂

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1. CL
  
  February 18, 2014
  
  I went to all 3 on mkt. 🙁
  
  Reply
  1. PointChaser
    
    February 18, 2014
    
    Really? There’s that one a block or two from Westfield and they always let me buy Paypal cards with an Ink card. One of my readers emailed me today and reported success at that location.
    
    Reply
    1. CL
      
      February 19, 2014
      
      Really?… On the Westfield side or the other side? I need to go try again tomorrow. I gave up and just purchase from Walgreens… Thanks!
      
      Reply
      1. CL
        
        February 22, 2014
        
        I went yesterday and they said cash only, they wouldn’t even try to ring it. They said to try across the street on Kearny. 🙁
Brandon Mausler

February 18, 2014

I definitely like the double points when using the Ink card to buy Paypal My Cash cards, or other reload cards, at 7-11. After liquidating $1,000 from Paypal using AP, one good way to liquidate more money from Paypal would be to buy Vanilla Reloads and then load them onto a prepaid debit card. Seeing how popular manufactured spending is in the Bay Area, I’m pleasantly surprised that in San Francisco, you found a 7-11 and 2 CVS’s to buy reload cards.

Ariana, what city are you from? I’m kind of curious since I’m from the Almaden neighborhood of San Jose.

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1. PointChaser
  
  February 18, 2014
  
  I always get that from Bay Area residents, but I’ve never had a problem finding VR’s. The two CVS stores and 711 on Market St are loaded, and there are at least two sources in Berkeley that I’ve had luck with, along with downtown Oakland (which was my regular spot for a while). I live in Fairfield, but I used to commute to the Bay Area for work and that’s where I’d get my daily dose of VR’s.
  
  Reply
  1. Charles
    
    November 18, 2015
    
    What was the Berkeley locations that allow this and do you know if it still works?
    
    Reply
    1. Ariana Arghandewal
      
      November 19, 2015
      
      That was back in the VR days, which are no longer available.
      
      Reply
Rahul

February 18, 2014

Which 7-11 in SF accepts credit cards? All the ones I went to had the register decline the cc transaction

Reply
1. PointChaser
  
  February 18, 2014
  
  The one on Market Street. It’s a block or two from Westfield, next to a CVS. I haven’t been there in a while, but someone I told about that location emailed me this morning to confirm they were still accepting Ink cards for Paypal Reloads.
  
  Reply
MileHighBug

March 29, 2014

How often are you able to send 1k through Square Cash? Do you just send it back and forth between yourself and one other person? Since I have heard of so many account closures I want to make sure I don’t overdo it.

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1. PointChaser
  
  March 29, 2014
  
  I don’t do this regularly, but yes, I’d send cash to a family member and they’d send it back.
  
  Reply
Ryan

May 2, 2014

Can you use the PayPal debit card to load Serve at WM (either register or kate)?

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1. PointChaser
  
  May 2, 2014
  
  You can just load your Serve account online directly with a credit card. Use Paypal debit to buy money orders at Walmart.
  
  Reply
Adam Lasnik

December 13, 2014

I realize this thread is pretty darn old, but… I was curious to know if you’re aware of any places in the Bay Area that still allow purchasing of PayPal cards w/ credit (I’m in Mountain View).

Thanks!

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Andy

December 21, 2014

The CVS stores I’ve been to in the East Bay (Antioch, Danville) and a Walgreens in Antioch have accepted credit cards for Paypal My Cash cards. One cashier thought that only cash could be used, but the system allowed it.

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Purple bag

September 6, 2015

This is all incredibly helpful along my path as I build my hundreds slowly with VGC And getting ready to build. Since I can never score anything great in Stores( staples, OfficeMax at $100, simon malls( seems closest:easiest.
I have green dot and net spend on the back burner and red dot on the front. I’m seeking updates on this information. More specifically the Amex since I have read in other forum of the new difficulty. Would I be able to have the Amex GC and the Redbird since I cancelled the Serve to get a Redbird by convenience.
I also face worried CSR every time which does not help.
Advice?thank you.

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Purealoha

October 27, 2015

I never thought to use this card, and I’ve had it for YEARS, question…. so i purchase the paypal card with my fav. cc, and then i load it to my paypal account and can i use this to load serve? say pay a cc? am i correct on this thought process?

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1. Ariana Arghandewal
  
  October 27, 2015
  
  Use a Paypal Business debit card to cash out the funds via money order.
  
  Reply
Emily

January 9, 2016

In view of relatively recent demise of RedBird and likely imminent demise of BlueBird (along with Serve) – would you consider posting updates to your MS-related entries such as this one?

There are no Amazon Payments anymore, Vanilla Reloads are dead. Besides, you keep hearing about PayPal accounts being shutdown.

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1. Ariana Arghandewal
  
  January 9, 2016
  
  Absolutely. Thanks for pointing this out, Emily.
  
  Reply
2. R
  
  April 12, 2016
  
  That would be so great!
  
  Reply
mike@igobyplane

May 17, 2016

myself and a few others i found were the victim of fraud to the tune of $5000 on these because of a fatal security flaw in how these are designed. they are currently a very unsafe product.
http://www.igobyplane.com/2016/05/16/billion-dollar-paypal-my-cash-scam-partner-incomm-scam-got-busy-victim-blaming-me-while-i-got-busy-finding-their-fatal-security-flaw-and-embezzlers/

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Rolly84

September 4, 2018

I started using kloviaclinks. com to earn free extra cash after a friend told me about their service and today I just got $16,000 from them

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