Not all change is good, and it seems that Evolve Money is moving further and further away from being the gift card friendly company it once labeled itself as. In the past the online billing company has said that it is committed to letting it’s customers pay bills easily with all debit cards including Visa and MasterCard gift cards. But come 9/1/2014, it will be become much harder to do just that. I just received this email.
Dear Evolve Money Customer,
Due to changes in our risk and regulatory compliance policies, Evolve Money will be implementing a limit of one payment per biller account per month. This change takes effect September 1, 2014. There are no limits on the number of cash payments made with a Reloadit pack or Evolve Pay Bucks.We realize that some of our users have taken advantage of the multiple payments per month to pay off larger expenses such as mortgages. We are currently working on ways to improve the bill paying experience for you and expect to announce details soon.
The Bill Payment Transaction Limits section of our End User License Agreement has been updated to reflect this change. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] with any questions.Sincerely, The Evolve Money Team
This restriction to one payment per month, is not long after prior changes limited payments to 4 payments per month. Since most prepaid gift cards have a maximum value of $500. This one payment per month limit makes it impossible to pay bills larger than $500 unless you have access to Reloadits or a reloadable prepaid such as T-mobile. Even with the ability to pay more than $500 at a time, wave bye bye to paying a bill anything larger than a $1,000, as that is where the daily payment limit is set. At least the email states that they realize they are taking away their customers ability to use the service to pay large bills such as mortgages, and make vague promises to address this in the future.
The other problem this restriction causes for gift card users, is that when you are paying a bill with a prepaid card you are often left with an odd amount of money either on the card or left to pay on the bill. When there were no restrictions, Evolve was a wonderful way to use up odd amounts left on prepaids. Or if I was paying my power bill for $346 with a $500 card, I would just apply the remaining $154 to my phone bill that was $160, knowing I could come back to pay the balance of $6 later.
The email also notes that it will be treating debit card payments differently from Reloadit or it’s own Evolve Pay Bucks. They are not currently putting any restrictions on payments that they view as being cash. If you want to keep utilizing Evolve for any larger way, it would be well worth your effort to seek out a retailer who sells Reloadits with a credit card. Now that the newer packaging that does not state Cash Only has been rolled out to more areas, getting a Reloadit with a rewards earning credit card may not be as difficult as you think.Check out this list of stores to look for the cards in your area.
I still hold out hope that Evolve Money is still headed in the direction of offering more services to customers wanting to use rewards credit cards, directly or indirectly through prepaid gift cards as this Freequent Miler reported hearing from his source at Evolve Money after the last round of changes. But for now, these changes will make Evolve much less useful to those who want to earn miles and points while paying their bills.
So if you have $6 remaining on a prepaid gift card, and you have a $40 utility bill, you can pay $6 with the card then pay the remaining $34 with a Reloadit, all in the same month?
Very nice. I haven’t even gotten that email yet but it is already implemented in their T&C. Of course it’s too late now to change the bill payment to our daughter’s 529 account. I mean it’s not a big deal for me but it would have been nice to learn about that change a few weeks in advance. I’m going to email CS and complain now.
Bad news 🙁