Vanilla Reload Card Fraud Alert

On Flyertalk there's a report of Vanilla Reload Card fraud by The Mileage Millionaire:

'I won't go into all of the details right now, as my case is still pending, but you should make sure that your VR card has a 10-digit PIN before buying. There are fraudulent cards being sold, at least at one CVS store in Atlanta.

In my case, the funds loaded to the card and were withdrawn by someone else a couple hours after purchase. Even if I had wanted to immediately deposit the funds to my [AMEX] Bluebird account, I couldn't have, since my cards were missing the last 4 digits of the PINs.

Clearly, this is an inside job by someone(s) at VR Network or one of their vendors. I'm certain that there will be more reports of this coming soon here and/or on the blogs."

He had purchased two $500 cards, so that's $1000 gone that he's awaiting a refund for.

Most other commenters tend to agree with him that it's most likely an inside job by someone working at InComm (which manufactures the Vanilla Reload cards)--someone who was able to obtain the full 10 digit number, and apparently either prevent the last 4 digits from being printed or somehow remove them, which meant that the purchaser couldn't load their Bluebird card at all after removing the silver magnetic tape.

Hopefully more details will come to light and InComm will refund the $1000 to The Mileage Millionaire soon, but in the meantime, here are some steps you may want to take if you're buying Vanilla Reload cards:

1. Only buy a few cards at a time at a given location, to mitigate the risk of purchasing a bad batch

2. Peel off the silver magnetic sticker right after purchasing (even in store) to ensure the entire 10 digit number is there

3. Load Vanilla Reload funds immediately via computer or smartphone onto your permanent card; don't let them lie around, since that increases the risk of loss, theft and fraud

4. Consider avoiding in and around Atlanta when purchasing Vanilla Reload cards. If this was indeed an inside job, there may be other bad batches in Atlanta, where InComm is headquartered.

5. Contact InComm and urge them to increase the security of Vanilla Reloads, for example by adding a purchaser-specific security feature to help prevent fraud

Have you had any problems with fraud for any Vanilla Reload cards you've purchased?

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