Hi

 I have signed up for the Blue corner pre paid mastro card, and have had it for several weeks, and have loaded it.

However l am concerned that for over 2 weeks now, the web site has been down, l have tried using google to see if the webb address has changed, but it bring up the same address.

I have quite a large some of money on the card, and have tried to use it on line and it has not gone through. I am now thinking this company is a scam, and l have lost all my money. I have no other contact details for them.

 Can any one help me please

Ok you are thinking you've lost your cash so I thought you would prefer information rather than total uncertainty.

1) I looked at Companies House for Bluecorner and the best I could find is this which if you put the postcode into Google could be a scammer's address.

BLUE CORNER ASSOCIATES LIMITED
28 BATTENHALL ROAD
WORCESTER
WR5 2BL
Company No. 05883884

2) I put Bluecorner into saynoto0870.co.uk to see if they had a premium phone number. Nothing.

3) I put various searches into free online directory enquiries. Nothing

4) I got the same lack of response from the website and tried the odd other route to it. Nothing

5) There was a Bluecorner.com. Nothing.

MY SUGGESTION - the obvious

I suggest you get onto all of the debit/credit card companies that dealt with Bluecorner and see if you are covered. If they all take e mails I would suggest you do a simple master e mail to send to all. Then you've got an immediate record and follow up as necessary. If you phone check first to see if you can get a geographic from sayno. Make sure you are getting an answer from the COMPANIES AND NOT AN 'I THINK' from a member of staff which is sadly rife and at a time when you are grrr anyway may... Always be polite and user friendly but assertive simply because this gets the job done if anything can. Bite tongue if necessary when off phone but not too hard cos may have to make another call soon.

I would welcome any other member contributing and telling me if I have gone wrong.

All the very best.

 

  

Dear caroline1964,

By way of a quick introduction, my name is Aaron and I work at Newcastle Building Society.  As Newcastle Building Society is the issuer of the Bluecorner Prepaid Maestro card programmes, I am sorry to hear that you are having difficulty contacting Bluecorner.

Bluecorner have recently rebranded to 'firstprepay', and both Bluecorner and firstprepay are the trading names of Affinity Cards Ltd.  We are aware of the current issues regarding the Bluecorner website, and are working with Affinity Cards Ltd to address the issue.

I would like to reassure you that the Bluecorner Prepaid Maestro card programmes are not 'a scam', and that the card programmes are operated by:

AFFINITY CARDS LTD
EDEN BUILDING LAKESIDE
CHESTER BUSINESS PARK
CHESTER
CHESHIRE CH4 9QT
Company No. 05424151

Newcastle Building Society is authorised regulated by the Financial Services Authority (Registration Number 156058).

Should you wish to discuss this matter further, please feel free to contact the Society on 0191 244 2000 and ask to be put through to me - Aaron, Prepaid & Debit Cards - and I will be happy to discuss the issue with you and arrange for representatives from Affinity Cards Ltd to call you back.

Kind regards,
Aaron

I'm pleased they've not gone bust, but if they're not processing payments that's not much help.  I'd tried loading my card, but haven't been able to do so for months now. 

Any suggestions for a more reliable provider of a similar service?

 

William 

the best way to load the bluecorner prepaid card is by cash at any post office branch, just hand over your card and the cash that you want to load and you will then be given your card back with a receipt and the amount loaded will be available to use on your card the following day monday-friday,  bluecorner will deduct a loading fee of 75p for each load you make at the post office and you can load up to £500 in one transaction, if you need to load more you can load another amount up to £500 but they will charge another 75p fee, the terms and conditions do state a maximum balance of £1000 for my magic 105.4 bluecorner card so be careful not to exceed this,  I never have any problems loading this way and i never have any problems using the card it is just the bluecorner website that is unreliable and is one problem after another but hopefully they will sort out this problem as it is important to be able to view your balance and transactions, the telephone number for prepaid card services is 0870 734 5156 and they were able to tell me my balance over the phone,  I would recommend bluecorner to anyone as if you load at the post office it is a very good value prepaid card, cashplus has a more reliable website but they charge either £4.95 monthly or £1.00 per transaction and you cannot load that by credit or debit card only by bank transfer or post office.

the bluecorner site is now back up for viewing your balance and transactions but still no card loads online,  seems rather slow to load the transactions page so just click and wait.

Having spent 'rather too much time' researching prepaid cards, the best one I have found is credEcard. (www.credecard.com). From all the price comparison sites I have found they are the cheapest to operate. Also, having looked around many sites they seem to have the best credentials especially since soe employment agencies are actually using their service to pay people their wages. Their site seems very stable too, for those people in the know they have the green verisign address bar, the only other people I've seen with that acreditation are PayPal.

strawhat:Having spent 'rather too much time' researching prepaid cards, the best one I have found is credEcard. (www.credecard.com). From all the price comparison sites I have found they are the cheapest to operate. Also, having looked around many sites they seem to have the best credentials especially since soe employment agencies are actually using their service to pay people their wages. Their site seems very stable too, for those people in the know they have the green verisign address bar, the only other people I've seen with that acreditation are PayPal.

My dear friend Verisign (as you can check out at http://www.verisign.com) is about a secure site online not really the credibility of the company. ExtrExtremecred is a good brand but at the end of the day it is also a "Bluecorner" product so i wouldn't touch it with a bargepole either. Bluecorner is now called firstprepay or something so if you see bluecorener, first prepay, affinity card l;imited, you know you aredealing with the same set of idiots. What you should be looking at is the supporting partners and for that i would only look at Splash Plastic - www.splashplastic.com - they are run by Prepay technologies who are backed by GE Money, LINK ATM network and clydesdale bank and have been around for 7 years -

Now thats what i would call stability. The only other one i can think of which is even mildl reputable is probably cashplus but i really wouldnt look fruther than Splash! Well i am biased because i have always had a card for the lst 5 or so years with them and never had a "blueocorner" issue!!

RupertPJones,  why having never used a bluecorner card do you refer to them as idiots?     I have been using their card for a year now and have never had a problem loading the card at the post office and i have never had a problem using the card,  It is also very good value as i load £500 every month for just a 75p load fee and then there are no other fees, Also when i had a problem with a merchant who failed to supply the goods paid for  bluecorner bent over backwards to help me and i got a refund,   The only problem with bluecorner is the website but this is now being addressed.

FirstPrepay

After extensive research of my own in regards to the various prepay cards currently available on the Market, you will find that the majority of products available are linked to Affinity cards or First Prepay as it is now known. This is largely due to the fact that they are the current leaders in this growing market.

I myself have since purchased a Prepay debit card from Affinity cards (First Prepay) and have been very satisfied with the service i have received so far. I received my card well within the time specified on the website and after activating my card, have found my card to be extremely useful.

As someone who predominately uses the Internet for most purchases, i now feel much more comfortable in the knowledge that i can enter my card details on the websites safely without the risk associated with providing companies with your credit card details.

In regards to the Cashplus card mentioned in Mr Jones's post, i have, in the past, been the unfortunate owner of a Titanium prepaid card by the same company and have found them to be most unhelpful. I had constant problems with loading my card and on several occasions i have have to contact the company in relation to money being withheld on my account.

I will sign off by saying that i have always found FirstPrepay (Affinity Cards, BlueCorner Cards) to be a trust worthy company who actually do care about customer service.

Thanks

Satisfied Prepay Cardholder

As i said my dear friend, Cashplus is not perfect but titanium is one of their products which they have through a partner and any card can have a problem. That might be down to CashPlus or MasterCard or whichever partner they work with. At least you can't doubt the ethical behaviour of the firm.

As for Bluecorner, I dont want to get into that discussion any longer as I think I would go with any of the other providers but Bluecorner. The firm is simply - well forget it.

Bluecorner are marketing experts - not prepaid experts - they have excellent spin....e.g. someone would look at the prepaid card section at moneyexpert site at www.moneyexpert.com and think-  oh wow - so much choice but when you look closer, you realise that these are all bluecroner cards and the site is not actually giving you a comparison. They probably have an exclusive arrangement with moneyexpert.

 You want to have a true comparison, have a look at www.which-prepaid-card.co.uk

You will see where Splash Plastic, Quidity, CashPlus and others stand in comparison to Blue Coner - the spin doctors!

Hi,

No need to get all emotional and Bold text eveything. All I am saying is that reach out across the internet and read the forums - Bluecorner has a well deserved bad reputation. These guys are excellent spin doctors and if i wanted them to market my company, i would get them on board straight away! but would i want to buy their product -thanks but no thanks.

I am glad you like your card and that it has worked well for you. Thats what prepaid should be about - providing a good deal and not about getting a card into your hand, come what may.

Cheers

I have recently purchased a Cash plus card to enable me to send money to my friend in Nigeria. I have found this to be a quick and easy way to directly transfer money to my friend without the extortionate charges associated with direct transfers through the Post office. I just thought that I should make everyone aware of the service provided by Cash Plus as I know many of my friends have also suffered charges for sending money to people abroad.

My name is Lisa Lord.  I'm the Marketing Manager for Affinity Cards Ltd (First Prepay). 

Just to clarify the situation with our Bluecorner website.  We have experienced some technical difficulties with the Bluecorner site which have now been rectified.  A new look site has been created to enable our customers to continue to service their cards.

We endeavour to provide the best possible service to our customers at all times, unfortunately this was not 100% possible when the Bluecorner site was down.  However, during this time customers should still have been able to load money onto their cards via offline load channels such as PayPoint and the Post Office.  A customers' ability to make purchases on their card was unaffected by the temporary technical problem with the website.

Unfortunately, some of the content on this thread contains non-factual information regarding First Prepay's card programmes.  As a result, I have asked the moderators of this forum to remove the posts which represent unjustified reputational implications for First Prepay.

Regards

Lisa Lord

 

 

Lisa,

 

Who would entrust their money to a card with a broken website?

Your web presence is the only visible sign that everything is working.  Certainly, my qureies to customer services took a while (4 days) to be answered, and then only in anodyne terms which didn't inspire me with confidence!

 

I quote (extract):

Essential maintenance has been carried out on our main server, due to this; we have had to temporarily take the service offline.

We try to keep
disruption to a minimum during this process and wish to reassure you
that the service will be available again shortly.

We wish to apologise for temporarily restricting access to your account.

 

If it was just the server this should be easily fixed/replaced - I suspect it was a major software crash which has all sorts of implications for security etc.  Also, no idea of timescale given, no mention of alternative ways to load the card and no follow-up e-mail to tell me the site the site was back up.

Like it or not, we gain our impression of the whole service from  what we see on the web and in our contacts with your organisation.

 

William