UBA prepaid Visa card/UBA Africard no longer accepted on Facebook & Google Ads

Today, June, 20th, CameroonForSale Team has made a discovery that will greatly demotivate people who intend to get the UBA prepaid card for boosting of their Facebook pages/posts.

Without beating around the bush, the bad news is, Africa’s most popular prepaid card (which is widely advertised as the best prepaid card in Cameroon for Facebook boosting and highly sought after by the internet entrepreneur); the UBA prepaid visa card (AKA UBA Africard) is no longer accepted by Facebook.

In order words its no longer possible to use a UBA prepaid visa card to pay for Facebook Ads (Facebook boosting).

As a blogger who has written many articles, urging the internet entrepreneurs to get the UBA Africard for Facebook page boosting and online shopping, i taught it wise to write this article to share this info in order to help those who intend get the UBA prepaid card to pay for Facebook Ads, to save their time and money.

NOTE: This restriction only applies to the newly issued UBA Prepaid Visa cards.

So if your UBA prepaid visa card (UBA Africard) was issued in/before 2020, you can can use it to pay for Facebook ads… and if you have already linked your UBA Africard visa prepaid card to Facebook before the restriction, you can keep using your UBA prepaid card to pay for Facebook ads.

But once your UBA prepaid card expires, you won’t be able to link another UBA prepaid card to your Facebook account to pay for Facebook Ads.

This is happening months after Google also restricted usage of the UBA prepaid card on their Google Ads platform. So incase you don’t know, its not also possible to use a UBA prepaid card to pay for Google Ads. In fact Google has “generally” banned the usage of prepaid cards for the payment of Google Ads fee…you can only use a debit card to pay for Facebook ads in Cameroon and other African countries as of June 20th 2021.

Somebody may likely want to ask why did Facebook ban the usage of Africa Number 1 most popular prepaid card; the swiss army knife of the African internet entrepreneurs.

Facebook hasn’t has not released any statement to justify their ban on the UBA prepaid card, but information we gathered on many African tech blogs regarding the issue, points to two factors which include;

1) Non payment of Facebook Ads fee by UBA Prepaid card holders

Facebook uses a payment after service billing system in which they charges advertisers after they have exceeded their ad budget.

Some UBA prepaid card holders (with limited knowledge about Facebook advertising) often set an Ad budget that is greater than the funds in their UBA prepaid card.

After running a Facebook Ad for a specific time frame and attained the payment threshold, most UBA prepaid card holders don’t often have enough money in their prepaid card to cover their Ad cost.

And it sometimes takes months before they are able to reload their card and issue payment for their Facebook Ads and some will replace their card.

2) Charge backs from UBA prepaid card holders

Another reason which may have accounted for the Facebook ban on UBA prepaid is the charge back issue.

For those who don’t know, charge back is an act of reversing payment issued for a product or service by credit card holders.

How does chargeback works???

After issuing payment for a product or service, some unscrupulous credit card holders often go to the bank to reverse a payment or requesting that their banks should reverse the payment that they issued for a product or service claiming that they didn’t make the payment or they were either over billed.

Like i mentioned earlier, out of lack of knowledge about Facebook advertising, so many UBA prepaid card often set a very huge ad budget and when their card is debited, they often go to their banks to retrieve their money from Facebook claiming that they didn’t approve the payment.

Charge back is a nightmare to most online merchants as it causes them to lose money.

The tech bloggers are of the opinion that the numerous charge backs from the UBA prepaid card holders, may have caused Facebook to restrict usage of the UBA prepaid card for the payment of Facebook Ads.

3) Facebook may have emulated the example of Google and other platforms that have placed a general restriction on prepaid cards.

Like i mentioned earlier, Facebook Ads ban on the UBA prepaid card is happening barely 1 year after Google Ads also banned the usage of prepaid cards for the payment of Google Ads fees.

Other online merchants have also ban usage of prepaid cards on their platform.

Somebody may likely want to ask, WHY THE WIDESPREAD BAN ON PREPAID CARDS???

Many online merchants have noted a high number of charge backs from the prepaid card holders and very few from the debit card holders hence they prefer accepting payments via the debit cards only.

One of the methods which the online merchants have been using to reduce charge backs, is by blocking the prepaid cards of the people who often file for chargebacks with their bank.

However this method has not been fruitful as its very easy to get a prepaid card for Facebook ad, if a prepaid card is blocked.

For instance in Cameroon, you can get a UBA prepaid card for 12500frs ($22.63) and the card is issued instantly…this makes it very easy for anyone to replace a prepaid card.

But this is not the case with the debit cards as its very hard to replace the debit cards and in addition to that, since a debit card is directly link to ones bank account, its very easy for Facebook to collect outstanding debts.

Due to the wahalas presented by the prepaid card holders, Facebook, Google and other online merchants might have implemented a ban on the UBA prepaid card to clean their system.

Just like most Cameroonians always say, quality is better than quantity i.e. they rather prefer to work with few clients with debit cards.

How to Pay Facebook Ads Using UBA Prepaid Card After the ban

Only way the UBA prepaid card holders can use their cards to pay for Facebook ad is via PayPal.

For those of you who don’t know, Facebook also accepts PayPal.

So you can create a PayPal account and link your UBA prepaid card to your PayPal account.

After you have linked your card to your PayPal account, you can then start using your PayPal account to pay for Facebook ads with your UBA prepaid.

If you need a PayPal account for Facebook Ads or can’t link your UBA prepaid card to your PayPal account, WhatsApp me. I create you a PayPal account and link your UBA prepaid card to your PayPal account for a little fee.

Apart from Paying for Facebook Ads, you can also issue payments on numerous platforms that accepts payments via PayPal.