This article looks at refunding the value of cards back to your account and whether it is possible. It is worth noting that non-reloadable cards by design, can't have value pulled from them in any way. They are designed as single use, you load funds once, and you can't remove funds, or add more funds again.
Now let's look at some more specific cases:
Expired/expiring cards
As explained above, there is no way to pull value of the cards, even when they are expiring, our issuers make money on the 'breakage', which is the left over funds on a card when it expires. For example, when you get a $100 card and spend down $96, the remaining $4 is the 'breakage' and remains with the issuer. Laso Finance does not receive that revenue.
Here are some ways you can potentially spend that last value remaining on your card.
Refunding/withdrawing from non-reloadable prepaid cards
Previously, to issue refunds, we would charge the card just like we are a regular business. However, as this is Laso Finance charging Laso Finance cards, it is incorrectly, but understandably, suspected by each merchant processor as a high-risk transaction and potentially money laundering so it is not possible.
After that, we accepted refunds, and Laso team members applied those refunded non-reloadable cards to our Amazon, Uber, etc. accounts as compensation.
The eventual solution will be to get a new processor that is aligned with our business model and allow us to recover value from cards. No timeline on that yet, though.
US NR/CAD NR cards
Unfortunately, we do not offer refunds for US/CAD NR cards under any circumstances. As always, before purchase we recommend checking whether the merchant you would like to spend at, has had previous successful transactions on our merchants list.
As always, please note that US/CAD NR cards are only spendable if you are physically located in the respective country.
INTL NR cards
If an INTL NR card has never been used, you can request a refund, this will take up to 30 days to complete, and it incurs a fee of 14% on the value of the card.
In order to 'refund' your card, we spend the card as any other customer would, this means that we have to wait until the card is fully spent before we can refund the value minus the refund fee back to your account. While we know this is not a great experience, this is the only method with which we are able to offer refunds at this time.
To request a refund for your INTL NR card go to the card and follow these steps:
You will then have 5 steps to confirm to request the refund.