Apparently inComm, the company behind the issue of Vanilla Mastercard prepaid gift cards accidentally issued some cards that when activated, had no limit on them and allowed the holder to spend way past amount the cards should have been limited to.

This is the first I’ve heard of a glitch like this for such a prepaid card.

Apparently some thieves became aware of the glitch and started buying the cards and using them to purchase thousands of dollars of electronics. About five people were arrested for knowingly using the cards to spend more than they should have.

However, I suspect at least some of those accused of fraud will have a perfect alibi – that they were given the cards and had no idea how much was on them, as you have to go out of our way to determine the remaining balance.