Tmobile rebate card doesnt work through Northlane

Mkinn21 is accurate. I also have received a $200 virtual Mastercard as administered by Northlane for T-Mobile. In my case, I uploaded the $200 debit card to the Apple Wallet on the IPhone. That was easy enough to do. T-Mobile provided a link to Northlane, but Northlane’s weblink did not come with a PIN or instructions on how to set the PIN. I finally called the phone number for Northlane virtual debit cards and got the PIN set. I walked into the gas station and attempted to purchase $1 worth of gas. The touchless credit card reader easily picked up the debit card information from my IPhone’s Apple Wallet. I entered the PIN. The transaction appeared to be “accepted” and then abruptly cancelled with the cashier stating an error occurred because the “Sunrise Bank” was not recognized.

Needless to say, there is a tremendous amount of frustration with this Northlane administered virtual Mastercard.

Hey T-Mobile: when getting the rebate you promised sucks at every step, that’s a terrible first impression for a new customer!

I signed up for new 5G service, $200 rebate was promised in 6-8 weeks, that’s the first ‘soft obstacle’, simply remembering you were owed this, checking the status, making sure an email isn’t tied up in your spam folder, etc.

9 weeks later, I get an email that ‘your reward is here, only one more step’ with a click through link.  Clicking that link goes to a Northlane page (Sunrise Bank) that doesn’t work - it won’t accept my information as valid.  On the page it says “if you are having issues, call Customer Service” with no contact number or link.  It’s purposefully unhelpful.  Obstacle number 2.

So I call T-mobile’s customer service, wait 45 minutes on hold (side note here to T-mobile: please upgrade your call center system to tell me how much longer I have to wait and (even better!) provide a call-back option).  Of course T-mobile can’t help me because this is a Northlane issue.  To their credit, they get a Northlane representative on the phone and do a live handoff (as opposed to forwarding me to Northlane and then dropping me).  The Northlane person is able to help me, and while on the call, I get to my virtual pre-paid Mastercard debit card information (a graphic that looks like a credit card).  The rep tells me to take a screen shot of the card immediately, which I do.  Good thing, because as soon as I hang up, the app logs me off, saying I timed out, and I have no way to get back in.

As everyone who has ever used one knows, these pre-paid cards are designed to never give you your money, and to drain what money is on the card away via various fees.  I’ll just call the very use of these cards, vs., say SENDING ME A CHECK, or SIMPLY CREDITING MY T-MOBILE ACCOUNT, as obstacle number 3.  For this card, every month you have this thing (and it’s only good for 6 months) they charge you $3 against the remaining card value.

There is an option to ACH the funds to my checking account, for a $6.95 fee, and I decide I’m willing to eat the $7 to get most of the money.  Problem is, I can only do that with a verification text sent to my mobile.  The only mobile I have on record at T-mobile is the phone number of my 5G gateway, which cannot accept texts.  Obstacle number 4.

So I try to add the card to my Apple wallet.  Works great up until the last step, then terminates with Apple saying to contact the card company.  I try this multiple times over a two day period and it never works.  Obstacle 5.

Finally, I just buy myself an Amazon gift card, via my Amazon account, and pay for it with this card.  And that works.  I get the virtual Amazon card via email, and add it to my Amazon account as a credit.  Not cash exactly, but I’ll have no problem spending that on Amazon.

Get my email for my 5g rebate coming in…. Thought it wasn’t going to be a nightmare.  I put in my number and do the captya and get… 

“We were not able to validate the information provided. Please try again OR if you feel you’ve reached this message in error, please contact Customer Service.” 

No number or email for customer support.

Cool… Cool cool cool… So… now what?

T-mobile doesn’t have a chat / email so I guess I’m going to sit on hold forever to not get the issue fixed… 

10/10 best waste of time this week. 

Hi was the rebate check blue from north lane? Where did you cash it if you don’t mind me asking or did you just put it in your bank? I got mine last night & not sure what do with it my bank (US Bank) wouldn’t accept it without going through hoops & fire. Thanks In advance 

INFORM TMOBILE WITH A COMPLAINT OR  DISPUTE THEN ALSO THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU at www.bbb.org

I have the same issues as all of you. Got 2 virtual promotion/rebate cards and none of them are working. Called t mobile, they have no ideas about the cards and directed me to the store that I got the phones. Sadly, I went to the store and online, both cards were denied. This is so frustrated,  t mobile must send actual card instead of virtual that does not work. The person at t mobile even helped me loaded the card to samsung pay and still not working. 

Okay so I found a SOLUTION, 

first, make sure you go to https://promotions.t-mobile.com/ instead of north lanes bs website, and after you go into the promotions at the bottom you will see your active ones, there you can redeem your virtual card without logging in through north lane,

take a screenshot !!

afterwards, and I had to DIG through north lanes FAQ to even find this, call this number to set up your pin 1 (888) 566-4438 - it’s amazing how they make it so hard to even find this information. T-Mobile do better and stop partnering with money sharks, 10/10 I will never even entertain tmobiles bank, for that one simple affiliation. I haven’t used the card after setting the pin, but that’s when I set it, it said “your card is now active,” how crazy is it that that is required to activate and NOWHERE in there page, but about 10 FAQS down that I had to search for. Bad business. You guys drain those cards quick and make sure they don’t start taking their monthly $3 charge, which is their earnings from tmobiles customers. T-Mobile offers hot deal for customers to get a rebate and partners with north lane to drain fees off of the cards by making it impossible to activate or use properly. Huge disappointment. Rich men from Richmond energy. 

Wow 5 months later and I’m having the same issue. I even had an issue trying to set up my online tmobile 5g internet account and had to contact their facebook account to get actual help.

Keep in mind that gas stations may sometime push through a large pre-auth charger of $100-$200. Perhaps that it why you’re seeing declines. Outside of that….I’ve got no explanation and the card should work for consumers. I’d be frustrated too!

Hi all — a followup on MY attempt to get this bogus “rebate.” All the solutions suggested above didn’t work, and the point of failure every time was Northlane. Each attempt I made ended with 1) my being told they couldn’t validate my account, then 2) with them giving me the card, but logging me out every time I tried to activate it or request a PIN, then finally 3) when I went to transfer the money to my bank that the card wasn’t valid and the bank didn’t exist.

Rather than waste anymore time on trying to get their stupid ‘virtual debit card’, I contacted T-Mobile thru their Facebook page and continued complaining via PM to their rep until she finally applied the $50 as an ACTUAL REBATE to my T-Mobile account. 

Shockingly, this worked. I’m as surprised as anyone, especially considering it was Facebook.

To recap: THE DEBIT CARD IS GARBAGE AND WILL NEVER WORK, SO PM THEM ON FB AND JUST DEMAND THEY REDUCED YOUR NEXT BILL.
 

I was told in the store it was like any other pre-paid card and that we could use it wherever. Come to find out, the sales rep was lying. When I call T-Mobile, it is essentially a T-Mobile gift card that only works at T-Mobile stores or to pay the bill. 

They were able to cancel the card and apply the credit to my account.