Update 11/7/22: Looks like this was a data breach on blackhawk networks side. Hat tip to ieatdogfood
Update 10/9/22: Mastercard gift cards are back now on Swagbucks at the regular 13% discount once per month or 2% discount consistently. Not everyone has yet been made whole from past issues. Apparently they are confident that the security problems have been resolved going forward. We’ll have to see how this evolves.
Update 9/15/22: Swagbucks is now sending out the following e-mail:
Hello <Name>,
We are reaching out because our records indicate you recently redeemed Swagbucks rewards for a Virtual Prepaid Mastercard. Members who placed similar orders have told us that they experienced an issue accessing their rewards card balance. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced in this regard. At this time, we are not aware of any security issue related to your Swagbucks account. We continue to work with the card issuer to try and identify the source of these issues.
To make it right, we have decided to refund the full points value to your Swagbucks rewards account for the Virtual Prepaid Mastercard you redeemed.
You should receive confirmation of your refund(s) within 24 hours of this message. If for any reason you do not receive it, please contact Customer Support for assistance.
We thank you for your understanding and hope to see you back at Swagbucks soon!
Update 9/13/22: Swagbucks has made the following statement:
Thank you for your inquiry regarding your Virtual Prepaid Mastercard rewards card, issued via MyPrepaidCenter.com. We have heard from a number of members recently that experienced an issue accessing funds that were loaded onto these prepaid rewards cards. At this time, no other rewards that Swagbucks offers its members appear to be affected, and we are unaware of any security vulnerability affecting our service. As a safety precaution, we have temporarily removed the Virtual Prepaid Mastercard rewards offerings from our rewards redemption site.
We are actively investigating your concern and will update your support ticket with additional information as it becomes available. In the interim, we appreciate your patience as we work with MyPrepaidCenter.com to determine the source of the problem.
Original post: Many reports surfaced today of Mastercard gift cards from Metabank via the Myprepaidcenter.com site which were drained down to zero fraudulently.
Many people get these $25 Mastercard gift cards on sale once per month from Swagbucks for $22 or get these for the constant 2% discount.
Hopefully everyone gets made whole over here as they sort through the breach. It’s actually Metabank/myprepaidcenter that has to rectify this issue, not Swagbucks.
There’s a class action lawsuit for this now: https://prepaidcarddatabreachsettlement.com/ @chuck
I got the email too
For the data breach victim, are only the loss on the prepaid card in myprepaidcenter.com counts as an “out-of-pocket” loss in the https://prepaidcarddatabreachsettlement.com/? I had a credit card unathorized transaction that happened almost one year after the accident, I am not sure if it is related to the personal data breach in prepaidcard, should I include this as an “out-of-pocket” loss? I received the email about the lawsuit.
I would
Thank you, so the “out-of-pocket” loss is not only the loss on the myprepaidcenter account but also all losses suspected from personal data breach?
If you got refunded from the CC bank already, I’d think not so much.
If you expended time and effort, sure, maybe. If you got a refund/credit, I have my doubts. However, they don’t have time to inspect each claim, IMO. Claim what you legitimately think is right because what you take is affecting others, in the big scheme of things. That answer to what is “right” will vary. Since you have no proof one is related to the other, and you likely incurred no loss after the bank sucked it up or got justice, at most, I’d claim the time spent dealing with the ordeal, if allowed.
Thank you for the explanation, then I would not claim the “out-of-pocket”, although I spent time contacting the merchant and CC bank.
i have a question. after i clicked to redeem and gave my name and address and whatnot they showed me the card info (number and exp date and whatnot) then i got an email saying my card is just a click away and to click here to retrieve card number. do i need to click there or make an account or any of that stuff or can i just ignore it and use the card/info i’ve already been shown by them ?
You can just use the card immediately. Take down the info either way. I’m always nervous it won’t log me in correctly or something or redo the token.
The fund used by myself is also voluntarily refunded yesterday
Dear Cardholder,
We have identified specific transactions on your account that you may not have authorized, and which may be related to a security event that we notified you about on October 4th, 2022. In an effort to provide you with the best cardholder experience, we are voluntarily refunding you for the full amount of those transactions.
To view your transactional history, including the refund which will be processed by the end of February 2023, please sign in to your account on myprepaidcenter.com.
Should you have any questions, please call 888-371-2109.
Sincerely,
Blackhawk Network
17SEP – 2x Disputes opened with Blackhawk after fraudulent charges on $50 GC
– Monthly update “Dispute still being resolved
20NOV – 1st Resolved
8DEC – 2nd Resolved
9/12 Opened dispute
12/5 Dispute resolved, funds added back to new card. Drained card right away to load AMZN.
I had called few days back and was told dispute has been resolved in your favor and you will get the funds soon
(they have 90 days and said we will meet the deadline)
Adding a DP for those of us who had to go through Blackhawk instead of Swagbucks:
9/12 – Opened dispute claim and asked for documentation (dispute form and utility bill)
9/13 – Emailed requested documentation
11/13 – Dispute closed and funds put back on the re-issued card
I would get boiler plate emails every 10 days saying the dispute was still in progress, but two months is way too long to handle fraud claims. From now on i’ll be draining these cards as soon as they are sent, even if it’s just used for Amazon credit.
Geez. I opened mine end of Sep, so I guess I’m waiting until Dec.
11/3 – ordered $25 MC on SB for 2175 ponits
11/7 – received email that MC was ready
Activated card and drained it on a $25 payment to utility bill immediately. Charge showed as pending in transaction history on MyPrepaidCenter.
Update to my earlier reports of code already redeemed. I submitted a ticket on 11/5. Today, I got the automatic email that the order has been completed, this time the code works fine. When logged into Swagbucks, my original order on 11/1 disappeared and a new one under 11/7 appeared. I can’t say for sure if they did this because I submitted the tickets, or if they just had an issue in their system.
wow that is why i use these immediately after getting it
Thought it was fixed, maybe not.
Ordered $25 mgc on 11/1 for P1 and P2, still haven’t received email on 11/5. Logged and and says sent under My Rewards. Sent again, says code already redeemed…for both accounts….
My order placed on 11/1 still showed pending as of today, don’t know how yours got sent, did you get an email like always? If not then they may still send you one
It was never sent to me, I logged in, went under My Rewards, and sent it manually myself. Also, this happened for P3 and P4’s monthly discounted virtual mgc so the issue is definitely not isolated.
So far, only got the canned answer of “please contact MyPrepaidCenter” from Swagbucks.
Both orders from 11/1 and 11/6 arrived today via email.
Ordered on 11/1. Still waiting. Don’t see it as sent in Swagbucks.
Same situation for my wife, ordered 10/31 and 11/1.
same…
10/31 just came through
Wow. After that option was made available again I ordered a couple of MGCs from mypoints with no issues, but this is pretty alarming.
Update: I just got mine. $25 and I just spent it. All good.