How to cash in your PayPal My Cash cards when PayPal freezes your account

66

Image this scenario:  Suppose a blogger you know had been buying PayPal My Cash cards at a certain three letter drug store and paying with a card that offers 5% cash back at drug stores, and through a series of events he ended up with loads of My Cash cards and no way to load them…

PayPal My Cash

Account warnings

In this imaginary scenario, this blogger may have received a warning from PayPal saying not to deposit MyCash cards and then withdraw the cash (details here).  Specifically, PayPal may have warned: “If we continue to see this activity of using the MyCash with your PayPal account for cash withdrawals, we may have to limit or close your PayPal account.”

So, hypothetically, imagine that this blogger continued to load PayPal My Cash cards, but stopped withdrawing the cash to his bank account as he had been doing before.  Instead, he loaded the My Cash cards to two different accounts, transferred the money to his account, then used his PayPal debit card to pay bills.

Account frozen

Now, imagine that this blogger then received an email from PayPal with the subject line “Your account has been limited.”  And, in the body of the email it said (among other things that made less sense): “…your account has been permanently limited…. You’ll be able to withdraw money from your account within 180 days.”

Imagine too that this blogger received the same email on the same day for each of the three PayPal accounts he was managing.  And imagine that many phone calls to PayPal and email pleas led nowhere.

Finally, consider the possibility that this hypothetical blogger still had $2,500 worth of My Cash cards in-hand.  What should he do?  Here’s the answer…

How to cash out My Cash cards

If you’re stuck with My Cash cards and no viable way to load them to PayPal, then here’s an option:

1. Log into PayPal.com/cash

Even if your PayPal account is frozen, you should still be able to log in with that account.

2. Go to the FAQ/Contact US page

Find and click on “Why couldnt PayPal verify my personal information?

If you haven’t logged in yet, you should see this:

PayPal My Cash

If you have logged in, you’ll see this:

PayPal My Cash

Note that there is now a link that says “Click here to request a refund”.  Click it.

3. Request a refund

You should now see a screen like this:

PayPal My Cash

After entering in your card’s PIN and the CAPTCHA characters, you’ll be brought to a screen asking for your name and address.  On this page they’ll promise a check in up to 14 days:

PayPal My Cash

Warning: do not do this to manufacture spend

It may be tempting to buy My Cash cards and ask for a refund over and over, but I promise it won’t be long before they cut you off.  This technique should be used only if you’re really stuck with no reasonable way to load these cards.

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

66 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments