Surprisingly, the web giant began intimating users today to get busy spending whatever balances remain on their cards because those cards will be discontinued on October 17.
The company mentioned that the reason for the change is that it has recently modified how its mobile app stores payment cards, effectively moving payment card information from the device to its cloud, and allowing customers to use almost any credit or debit card to Google Wallet. Previously, the Wallet app only supported Citi’s MasterCard and Google’s own prepaid cards.
Commencing from September 17, users will no longer be able to add funds to the prepaid card or add new prepaid cards to the app. In addition, resetting the Wallet app will cause the prepaid card to be removed. This will also mean that any existing prepaid cards that are removed from app after this date can not be added again. Also, users will have until October 17, 2012, to spend their remaining balance. After this date, cards will disappear from the app completely, rendering any remaining balance unusable.
Apart from this, Google has also altered the terms and conditions for the prepaid card. Where a $2 fee was applied monthly after 180 days of inactivity, now that time period has shrunk to 30 days. However, the discontinuation of the cards will not likely affect most US residents. But, in other countries, the Google Wallet app and US cards are not officially supported, which may have repercussions for early adopters.
Meanwhile, Google encourages those whose prepaid card disappears after an app reset to contact Money Network, the servicer of Google Prepaid Cards, to receive a refund.