For many years, the coin of the realm for many scams was wired funds because once funds were wired from your bank or a company such as Western Union, the money was gone, unprotected by consumer laws, difficult to trace and could not be easily recovered.  Many schemes including the infamous Nigerian Letter Scam were based upon people wiring the funds to the scammers.  Now we have a new way for scammers to take your hard earned money – prepaid debit cards.  Proponents of these card argue that they can be used just like a check, but unlike a check, there is no legal protection if you are scammed and paid the scammer using one of these cards.  These cards are prepaid and non-reoloadable cards that consumers buy at a store and use to reload a prepaid debit card.  In the course of the scam, the scammer will ask you to buy one of these prepaid debit cards and then ask for the seria number for verification.  This is all that they need to drain the card.  Sellers of these cards such as the company MoneyPak are aware of the problem and are trying to educate consumers.

TIP

Never pay for anything with a prpaid debit card unless you are absolutely sure of whom you are dealing with and have checked them out to make sure that they are not scammers.