The Offer
- Netspend has been sending out targeted promotions for loading a check to your account using their mobile apps. While these e-mails are targeted, it looks like they will work for anybody. Here are the different promo codes you need to use (enter them when prompted during Mobile Check Load flow :
- Bonus5: Load a check of $100 or more and receive $5
- Bonus10: Load a check of $100 or more and receive $10
- Bonus 15: Load a check of $100 or more and receive $15
The Fine Print
- Valid until November 15th, 2015
- To redeem this offer, you must successfully load at least $100 to your NetSpend(R) Visa(R) Prepaid Card and redeem the promotion code using the Mobile Check Load feature in the NetSpend Mobile App no later than 11/15/15
- The promotional incentive value of $5-$15 will be added to your check load amount and loaded to your Card Account once the check is approved
Our Verdict
As I said in the beginning these are targeted e-mails, but people report that once they’ve entered the promo code the value of the check they loaded corresponds with the promotional code they use so it seems like this will work even if you didn’t receive the e-mail. That being said the funds aren’t available until the check clears, so it’s possible that the bonus money will be reversed when it does become available.
Hat tip to reader Heidi H
Thank you so much the code actually works. Keep them coming. Great Day.
Got the bonus in November 2015. Tried now and get a “promotional code is invalid. Please check doe and try again. (a202).
The offer is still alive. I got $30 last week.
How did you get $30? Did you do the offer more than once?
I loaded three checks, using one code at a time.
Have you tried to use a code more than once to see what would happen? That’s great that you were able to use all 3 codes as I was worried about trying. Now I may try the other codes.
No, I didn’t. I only used each code once.
I guess I waited too long. I just tried to load a check with code “Bonus15” and received an error that I’m not eligible or the promo code is invalid. I then tried “Bonus 15” and it gave a different error code and said that the code wasn’t valid. This means they must have closed the loophole that you had discovered.
My check just posted for me. I was not targeted with an email. I got the $15 bonus using the code mentioned above with a $100 check I wrote to myself. I just checked Credit Karma and there is no inquiry on my credit from Ingo or Netspend. I’d say it’s a pretty easy $15.
Thanks, the fine print said that it was valid until 11/15/15. Did i miss out on this then? Might give it a try anyway.
If you missed out on the $15 promo, you can always do the $10 one. It is prominently displayed on their website and you have until 12/31/2015.
From their site:
To redeem this offer, you must successfully load $100 or more to your NetSpend Visa® Prepaid Card and redeem the promotion code using the Mobile Check Load feature in the NetSpend Mobile App no later than 12/31/2015. The promotional incentive value of $10 will be added to your check load amount and loaded to your Card Account once the check is approved. Limit of one (1) promotion code per person, defined by Individual Tax Identification Number. The one (1) per person limit applies for any offer your may receive between 9/15/2015 and 12/31/2015 from NetSpend or Ingo Money for using a Mobile Check Load feature. Cardholder must create an account with Ingo Money to use Mobile Check Load through the NetSpend Mobile App. Offer may not be transferred to others, exchanged for other offers, or redeemed for cash. Not valid with any other offer. Void where prohibited. NetSpend, The Bancorp Bank, BofI Federal Bank, MetaBank®, and Republic Bank & Trust Company are not affiliated in any way with this offer and do not endorse or sponsor this offer.
In the T&C it says:
“Cardholder must create an account with Ingo Money to use Mobile Check Load through the NetSpend Mobile App.”
And in the T&C for Ingo Money (http://www.ingomoney.com/partners/netspend-terms-conditions/) it says:
“We may obtain information and reports about you and your financial and transaction history from credit reporting agencies and from NetSpend to help us assess the risk of transactions you submit for our approval. You consent to us obtaining and using this information.”
You’re essentially authorizing them to do a hard pull… seems risky.
Hmm, yea, makes me a little nervous.
Can anyone confirm no hard pull?
I’ll say that I have a credit freeze with Equifax, Experian and Transunion, which “disqualifies” me for many things, but I was able to “sign up” for the check deposit service. I submitted the check and it was “approved,” but since I selected the 10-day service, it has not posted yet.
If I am not mistaken, a hard pull would have required some sort of action from me as they would not have been able to access my file.
Same question here. Any confirmation on the hard pull?
Has it been confirmed that there is no hard pull yet?
I recently opened a Netspend account (thanks DoC) and did not get any of the bonus e-mails, but was able to get the $15 and $10 bonuses on 2 separate deposits. There are some additional data points in a post on Fat Wallet.
Nice! Let me try that.
Is there any reason you didn’t try the $5 code too? How long after each deposit did the bonus post to your account?
I received the $5 email and did it before DoC wrote this post. But my bonus was available as soon as the check was, 10 days after deposit.
Did you try for the other bonuses? I might just try for the $10 bonus since I was targeted for that and don’t want to receive nothing.
I did not receive any promotion email about depositing the check through the mobile app. However, I was able to use the $15 bonus code (Bonus 15) to deposit my check of $101, and gained $116 in total. As far as I know for my friends who got the emails for $10, they also successfully used the $15 promotion code. It seems not targeted, or at least strictly targeted.
[edited: Sorry we had to remove the referral. Please leave the referral in the dedicated thread.]
Chuck has published several posts about netSpend account. Just in case you are not familiar with how this amazing 5% interest rate product works, I copied and pasted a detailed instruction from fatwallet. netSpend itself is a prepaid debit card account, but there is a savings account attached to it. If you have not had a netSpend account in the last 180 days, you can open one and take advantage of this offer. You can put up to $5000 in the savings account and earn 5% interest on it. There is nothing special about the prepaid debit card account and we are only going to use it as the money transfering tool. You can follow the simple steps below to open and fund the account. (1) Find a $20 bonus referral link and click the link to order a netSpend Visa prepaid debit card. (2) It takes about a week or so for the debit card to arrive. Once you have the card, go to https://www.netspend.com to activate it and sign up for an online account. (3) Once inside the online account, you should find the routing number and account number (treated as checking) linked to your debit card. You can use the two numbers in your external bank account to set up ACH transferring so that using your external bank account you can ACH money into or out of the netSpend debit card account. This ACH transferring will be treated as Direct Deposit. (4) Use your external bank account to ACH $40 into your debit card account, this will trigger the $20 bonus. (5) In order to open the attached savings account, you need to upgrade your netSpend debit card account to a premier account. It is very easy to do so because you only need to ACH $500 into your debit card account one time from your external bank account. After doing that, your debit card account will be upgraded to a premier account automatically. Because we are not going to use the debit card for shopping, we can just keep the debit card in the pay as you go plan and there is no monthly fee. Otherwise, if you put your debit card in the feeadvantage plan, you need to pay a $5 monthly fee, so don’t do it. (6) After you have a premier debit card account, you can open a savings account which is linked to your debit card account. Use your external bank to ACH $4500 into your debit card account. Then you can internally transfer the $5000 from your debit card account into your savings account. The $5000 will earn a 5% interest in your savings account. (7) Note that if you do not have an activity in your debit card account in 90 days, netSpend will charge you a maintenance fee. But it can be easily avoided. You can schedule ACH transfers in your external bank account to automatically push $5 into your debit card account and then automatically pull $5 out… Read more »
How long after the deposit did the extra $15 post?
Got the code for 15 in my email when this first came out. Did the deposit, used the code, deposit posted and never got the bonus.
Anyone knows if I can deposit 3 100$ checks, using one code at a time and get 30?
The terms clearly state it is 1 code per person.
Try as I might, I can’t load a check in the app. It tells me to call customer service, and when I do, they tell me it should work. Lost on what I can do about it!
same thing happened to me. Problem was I downloaded the app before i created an online account at netspend.com (required in order to use mobile app). Then I uninstalled the app and reloaded it and it worked fine. Good luck