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Note: This article only publishes techniques that have already been widely publicized, techniques that were not public but are already dead, and techniques we discovered ourselves.

[2020.12 update 3] The Privacy+PPK nesting trick is finally dead. Before, it was only half-dead (older nested setups could still be used to pay), but now even the earliest linked nested setup no longer works. The death came from Privacy declining the payment (the PayPal side could still post it). Hat tip: WeChat reader Urielllllll

  • The biggest use of the Privacy+PPK nesting trick was to turn a U.S. credit card with FTF (foreign transaction fee) into a virtual card with no FTF, and it could be linked to multiple Chinese merchants such as Alipay, AlipayHK, Taobao, WeChat Pay, Meituan Pay, etc.

[2020.12 update 2] All third-party tax websites no longer support PPK; before, only some did not support it.

AMEX recently shut down a batch of accounts, suspected to be due to heavy PayPal Key stacking or potential Cash Advance behavior; see here. A lot of these tricks have actually died recently, so this is a good time to summarize the dead ones. It is only a matter of time before the PayPal Key "debit card" trick dies completely. See China Construction Bank's Bonus+ Business MC credit card: for a long time it was recognized as a Debit card (all debit-card tricks worked on it), but later everything was corrected.

About PayPal Key

PayPal Key was the manufactured-spending marvel that appeared in 2020. By linking a credit card on PayPal, it created a virtual debit card number that worked amazingly well in many places that accepted debit cards. In short: you were paying debit-card fees or even nothing at all, but spending credit-card money, achieving a very powerful MS effect (manufactured spending). For more on PayPal Key, see:

PayPal Key has two BINs, 5581 and 5205. Among them, 5205 is the most aggressive and is accepted in many debit-card-friendly plays. 5581 is slightly weaker, but most places still accept it.

However, any manufactured-spending magic eventually falls. A number of PayPal Key tricks have been dying off one by one. These great tricks were mainly extracting value from PayPal, so it makes sense that PayPal has started to feel the pain.

Dead tricks

You read that right: everything listed here is dead, or was dead from the start.

Third-party tax payments

According to DP in WeChat groups, this was partially dead before, and now it is completely dead.

Cash App

Link Cash App, then load Cash App. Cash App does not support directly linking PPK; the trick was as follows:

  • The card BIN had to be a PayPal Key starting with 5205; 5581 would not work
  • You had to first link a real debit card in Cash App
  • Then on the account page choose Replace card and swap the real debit card for the 5205 PPK

This may have been blacklisted by PayPal from the very beginning (PayPal and Square are competitors). So even if you linked it with this trick, when you load cash, you were basically destined to be declined by PayPal.

Fund Citibank Checking

The posting showed up as PayPal*CitiBank, which was way too obvious. Surviving for a few months was already a miracle. You could directly load $1,000 per day, and this method probably died at the end of November.

You can think of this method as cashing out credit card funds in the form of purchases (with cash back and points)...

Pay Citi Credit Cards

The posting also showed up as PayPal*CitiBank, which was way too obvious. Surviving for a few months was already a miracle. This method officially died on December 4. When you tried to pay, it would show error code 5 (bank declined), but in reality PayPal declined it. The message was as follows:

DebitCardPayment Failed: Response Code: 5

Response Message: [The payment was rejected by the association or issuer]

Your bank has rejected the payment


KUKU even paid a few bills on December 3, and then it died on December 4. Surviving for a few months was already no small feat.

Plastiq for paying all check-based payments

This was also one of the most heavily exploited and easiest-to-scale methods. This method officially died on December 1. Plastiq sent emails to everyone who had used the PayPal Key (PPK) debit-card trick (the author never used it, so there was no email). PayPal told them that PPKs linked to credit cards would no longer work for spending on Plastiq, but PPKs linked to debit cards, checking accounts, or PayPal Balance could continue to use Plastiq as a "debit card." For details, see the original PayPal Key introduction article in 101:

Nested with Privacy

The death mainly came from Privacy's risk controls, not from PayPal banning the method. This trick was half-dead by the end of November: new linking was not supported (Privacy would close the account), while already-linked setups could still be used normally for now. It is expected to be not far from complete death. Privacy paid accounts had extra cash back, and since it was a virtual card itself, combining it with PayPal Key enabled many different plays. For details, see:

Still-working tricks

Only commonly known methods are listed here.

AMEX credit cards coded as dining

Although it was very powerful, after January 4, 2021 PPK no longer supported AMEX credit cards.

  • Amazon, Costco, Walmart, Best Buy, Google-type purchases, Visible, Cricket, various reload plays, Mo, etc. [Don't get cocky after using it; RAT can Claw Back at any time]
  • Note that it does not work at 100% of merchants. Some do not work, but it is certain that most really do code as dining.
  • With the extra 3x MR, 6x, or 7x MR from referral, imagine how powerful that is. RAT is expected to follow up with Claw Back.

Extra 2% on Amazon debit reload

The author mentioned this use case in the very first PayPal Key introduction, and DOC recently wrote about it as well. It is still fairly safe for now. PayPal has no real reason to ban it, because the deal is subsidized by Amazon. As for whether AMEX will shut you down, that depends on your volume.

Pay part of the rent for some apartments or communities

There are not many good communities left; use them while you can.

Third-party tax payments

Some tax-payment methods have died, but it seems that quite a few third-party tax-payment services still support PayPal Key payments.

Other methods

As long as you think of it as a debit card, there are definitely plenty of ways to use it. Right now merchants, PayPal, and the ultimate killer, the banks, are all squeezing PayPal Key from both sides, so these tricks probably won't last long either.

  • We expect the other existing tricks to die off one by one, and we will keep updating the dead methods.
  • If you know some unique tricks, go ahead and use them while you can.

Use them while you can. Of course, if you abuse it too much, you may get killed.

Conclusion

From the dead methods above, we can see that, except for Privacy, all of the deaths happened between late November and early December. The guess is that PayPal was reviewing its financial statements and realized it was being heavily exploited, and it hurt. On top of that, AMEX has also started targeting MSers and people abusing PayPal Key. My personal suggestion is to keep volume under control or dilute the share of PPK spending. If it is obviously CA behavior, stop using it for now.

The manufactured-spending marvels that emerged in 2020 also included Cash App, but it can only be considered a smaller-scale deal tool. Use them while you can. See:

Special reminder: beware of getting your whole household shut down by PayPal and the banks!