Funding an investment account with VGC

Recently, I learned of an app called Stockpile. This is an investing app aimed at families. The fascinating thing for us, is that they allow users to anonymously buy gift cards online using debit cards and Visa gift cards at $0 cost. These gift cards can be redeemed on their platform to buy stocks/crypto. I’ve been playing around with this for a while, and wanted to share some findings.

How does it work?

Excuse the potato quality, apparently I don’t know how to resize images

Pretty simple. You go here to purchase a gift card, and pay using your VGC. To liquidate, create an account on their platform, and redeem it for a stock. I’ve typically waited a few days to let the funds accumulate, and then I “cash out” from within the app. They send the money to your bank account within a week.

Their website states that this is limited to $200 redemption per day, but I’ve tried successfully up to 3 per day.

What are the downside?

The main downside with this approach is their monthly fee. They currently charge $5 per month. Now, if you liquidate enough cards using this platform, then that cost will make sense. Each gift card has zero fee as well, which makes this method appealing. That is a decision for you to make. It seems that they occasionally offer lifetime memberships for a fixed price, so that is something you can look out for.

The obvious other downside is account shutdown. If they notice that you are taking advantage of their platform, they are within their rights to shut your account. Obviously, they will refund you any money that is still in your account, but you will not be able to create a new account, since these investment-type services typically ID you off your SSN.