Guides
How any of this works
Prepaid vouchers, the frauds that route through them, what an exchange is obliged to check, and what actually happens to a code once you send it. Written to be read once and returned to.
Fraud and safety
Prepaid vouchers are the instrument of choice for a particular family of frauds. What those look like, how to recognise one in progress, and what to do in the first hour if you have already sent a code.
- 01How prepaid voucher scams workA voucher code is money that anyone holding it can spend, immediately and anonymously. That single property explains almost everything about how these frauds are built.7 min read
- 02Fake tech support calls and voucher paymentsThe warning on your screen cannot see your computer. The evidence the engineer shows you is standard output from tools built into Windows. Here is the whole script, in order.6 min read
- 03You sent someone a voucher code: what to do nowWork through this in order. The early calls are worth making even when the odds are poor, and the help that arrives unbidden a few days later is usually the second fraud.6 min read
- 04Romance scams and requests for prepaid voucher codesThe affection is the delivery mechanism. The payment method is the point, and it is chosen because it cannot be pulled back.6 min read
- 05Fake job offers that ask you to buy vouchersEmployers pay employees. Any arrangement that reverses that direction is not employment, whatever the paperwork says.6 min read
- 06Nobody legitimate asks to be paid in vouchersIt is the shortest rule in fraud prevention and the most reliable. It holds because of how institutions handle money, not because of who happens to be calling.6 min read
Voucher brands
Reference guides to the prepaid vouchers we work with: how each one is bought and redeemed, what the code actually is, and what the issuer's own terms say about passing it to somebody else.
- 01Transcash vouchers: the ticket, the code and the cardA Transcash ticket is a printed code that moves cash from a shop counter onto a prepaid card. Knowing what the code is, and what it is not, is the difference between using one and losing it in a telephone call.6 min read
- 02PCS coupons and the prepaid card behind themThe PCS name covers two different things: a prepaid Mastercard and the counter-bought coupon that loads it. Confusing the two is how people end up holding a code they cannot use.6 min read
- 03Paysafecard: how the 16-digit PIN worksSixteen digits on a printed slip are the whole instrument. This is what those digits do, where they can be spent, and how their value quietly shrinks when nobody uses them.6 min read
- 04Neosurf vouchers: how the code and the wallet workA Neosurf ticket is a printed code and nothing else. That single fact shapes where it is accepted, why it attracts fraud, and what has to be checked before anyone pays you for one.5 min read
- 05Cashlib and Flexepin: two prepaid vouchers side by sideBoth brands turn cash into a code that pays online. They were built for different retail networks on opposite sides of the world, and that shows in the currency, the ceiling and the scams that use them.5 min read
- 06Prepaid voucher brands: what actually differsSix brands, one idea, and a set of differences that only become visible when you try to spend one in the wrong country or sell one a year after buying it.6 min read
Using the service
What happens when you submit a voucher, in what order, and what can go wrong. Settlement methods and their real drawbacks. What the commission pays for.
- 01Selling a prepaid voucher: what happens, step by stepEvery stage of the sale, in order, including the points where it stalls and the reasons those stalls are not always fixable from this end.6 min read
- 02How you get paid: crypto, bank transfer or PayPalFour routes out, each with a failure mode of its own. Pick on the failure mode rather than the speed.6 min read
- 03What the 5% commission pays forFive per cent of face value, applied the same way at every size. What sits behind the number, and the cases where selling is the wrong move entirely.5 min read
- 04Why no KYC is required hereNo KYC documents are required to use this service, at any amount. A name and a country for sanctions screening is all we ask for. Here is why that works and what protections remain.2 min read
- 05How a voucher is verified with its issuerA person opens the issuer's merchant channel and asks four questions about one code. Everything before and after that moment is arranged so the answer can be relied on.6 min read
- 06What happens when a voucher fails verificationFour different findings share the same phrase. One of them means resubmitting straight away. One of them means the funds are held and the code is not given back.7 min read
Regulation
What a virtual asset licence means and what it does not guarantee. Why prepaid instruments attract anti-money-laundering rules. What sanctions screening involves.
- 01What a virtual asset licence does and does not guaranteeRegulators publish registers precisely so that claims can be checked against them. Most people never look, and the badge in a website footer is designed for people who never look.6 min read
- 02Why prepaid vouchers attract anti-money-laundering rulesNobody drafted a rulebook about Neosurf. The obligations that shape this service come from anti-money-laundering law written for cash, which turns out to apply to voucher codes rather neatly.6 min read
- 03How sanctions screening and PEP checks workScreening is neither a background check nor a credit check, and a match is not an accusation. It is worth knowing how the machinery works before it pauses a payment.7 min read
Reference
Definitions, limits and the reasoning behind the rules — the material worth coming back to rather than reading once.
- 01Glossary: voucher, crypto and compliance termsVoucher exchange borrows its vocabulary from shops, from banking and from law enforcement, and each of those fields means something different by the same word.6 min read
- 02Restricted countries: three reasons, one listSanctions, licensing and plumbing are three different problems. Only one of them says anything at all about the country involved.6 min read
- 03How transaction limits work, and why they existA ceiling on a transaction is rarely about the transaction. It is about the window it sits in, and the person it belongs to.6 min read