Prepaid Wireless Cards RevealedPrepaid Wireless Cards go by many names:• Topup Cards • Replenishment Cards • Payment Cards • Airtime Cards  Regardless of what people call them, they all have the same basic, and critically important(!) function of getting money onto your prepaid phone account. Prepaid cards were one of the first replenishment products on the market, and are still amongst the most common. Prepaid wireless cards all typically have the same general characteristics:
This process of buying a card and adding (or applying) it to your account using a PIN is usually called "redemption" or "redeeming the card." This two-step process is pretty straightforward, but has some challenges, which we'll get into a bit later. Ever wonder why some stores hang their prepaid wireless cards on the shelf in plain view, while other stores keep them locked up behind the counter or in the safe in the back? It's all about theft! Depending on the technology in the store, you'll see cards sold in different ways. POSA (Point Of Sale Activation) I know what you're thinking...what's that....?! Well don't worry, most people I worked with had the same question. Unless you're working behind the scenes directly with these products, it's a pretty unsual thing to just know off the top of your head. The good news is that it's easily demystified. POSA stands for "Point Of Sale Activate/Activation." So what does that mean?  Theft is a big problem...Consider a big retail store like Wal-Mart. They want their products to hang on the wall easy for you to grab, throw in your cart, and take to the checkout stand. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who aren't honest like you and I, and istead of throwing that $20 prepaid wireless card in their cart, they place the card in their back pocket and walk out of the store without paying. A sad, but true reality. So, to allow stores to hang these prepaid wireless cards on the shelf without the risk of theft, inactive, or cold cards are kept on the shelf. So if the card is stolen without being purchased, it won't work. It's pretty straightforward in concept, however, the activation process takes some work. How does POSA work? Basically, the store's sales register is connected to a technology vendor. When the clerk scans or swipes the card for you, they are actually capturing the serial number of the card (not the PIN!). They send that serial number to the technology vendor. The technology vendor then looks up the PIN that's tied to that serial number and activates the PIN (often referred to as turning it "hot"). If this activation process is successful, the clerk receives a success response on their register. This tells them that the card is now good to go, and they can sell you the card. It's important to note that all of this happens in real time while you're standing at the register...litterally seconds. Now you can leave the store and redeem the card! Non-POSA/Hot Having just learned about POSA above, you know the hard part. Non-POSA (i.e. not POSA) cards are simply cards that are hot in the store. You'll see a lot of smaller stores like independent wireless dealers that have these cards in their stores. These stores are much more intimate than large retailers, and they don't have to worry about putting all of their products on the shelf. Most of these dealers will keep their wireless cards in the cash register or even in the back locked in a safe. Seriously! Think about these cards as a stack of cash. You definitely wouldn't want to leave them lying around. Safeguarding cash (i.e. Hot Cards)... What you might be asking yourself now is 'how do they get the cards in the first place'? It definitely wouldn't be safe for the carrier to produce, warehouse, and ship stacks of prepaid wireless cards that are essentially piles of cash! Hopefully none do. Although I can't speak to what all of the carriers do, I do know that the industry standard process is to produce the cards cold, store them in the warehouse cold, and even ship them to the stores cold. Then, when the dealer receives a shipment of cards, they use various tools to contact the wireless carrier. The carrier then activates some or all of the cards as the dealer's request. They call this "bulk" or "batch" activation.  As you can imagine, Hot cards have some risks (i.e. storing wads of cash in your store), however, it is a great solution for low tech stores that don't have partnerships or technology to support more advanced procedures. It's actually fair to say that Hot cards were the original replenishment products for most major wireless carriers. While most have introduced newer replenishment products/technologies, hot cards still remain in the marketplace.
Return from Prepaid Wireless Cards to Adding Money
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