Prepaid Debit Card Reviews, Complaints, Etc

Tag: best prepaid debit cards

  • Netspend Prepaid MasterCard Review (support your fav MLB team)

    The Netspend Prepaid MasterCard Debit Card is a highly functional debit card, which makes financial errands easy and fun filled tasks – well almost. You can also support your favorite Major League baseball team by having their logo put on your card. It is issued by Netspend, one of America’s largest prepaid debit card processors. Read the full Netspend Card Rating here.

    When it comes to cash safety, this is one of the safer cards to settle for. The bank processes the card in a highly secretive way, to ensure that all transactions are carried out by genuine card holders (most prepaid card offer similar security benefits). This is effective because the bank has detailed security information pertaining to all card holders. In case a card is lost or stolen, the bank protects your account against all unauthorized transactions. What’s more, it will issue a new card on the spot to avoid any inconvenience. This is one of the better prepaid debit cards, but be sure to comparison shop on our site as their are cheaper options (be sure that is safer than cash and cheaper to than using check cashing places).

    The Netspend Prepaid MasterCard Debit Card is a card that can be used anywhere across the globe where MasterCard is accpeted. It is Better Business Bureau accredited with a BBB rating of A+ (though there are negative reviews on our site). In addition, Netspend is issued by Metabank that is a member of the FDIC, every transaction under the card is genuine due to highly encrypted information which protects the password, and other security card details. With the card, one can manage his or her finances at the comfort of his or her home. For regular travelers, the card is efficient and you do not have to walk around with huge amounts of cash.

    The Netspend.com Prepaid MasterCard Debit Card allows you to shop online too, and you can do faster transactions than carrying cash. With availability and easy accessibility of internet services across the globe, you can do your shopping online with the card as well as retail stores. It spares shoppers daily, weekly or monthly shopping hassles especially during peaks seasons such as Easter or Christmas Eve.

    Like other prepaid MasterCards, the card has a 100% guaranteed approval and there is no need for a credit check. You can get this prepaid debit card regardless if you have bad or no credit. The other feature with this card is that there are no minimum balances or overdraft fees (another benefit of most prepaid cards). There is also exclusive a savings account program you can enroll in.

    For those who love to transfer funds from one account to the other without leaving their homes, this card is offers related options. Online transactions and transfers are just a click away. Card holders can also pay their creditors online, pay bills online to avoid embarrassing moments where creditors come knocking at your door. Like other prepaid MasterCards, card holders also benefit from direct deposits from their paycheck or government paychecks.

    The Netspend Prepaid MasterCard Debit Card is also beneficial because it allows card holders to control their spending more efficiently. This can be done by tracking all transactions with online budgeting tools. Card holders also get alerts on their mobile phones on a 24 hour basis. All funds that are transacted with the cards are FDIC Insured up to the current coverage limit. Lastly, you can get rewarded with lots of Netspend card benefits. Intro APR, into APR period, Regular APR and balance transfers are not applicable as this is not a credit card.

    For more from this author visit:  Tameka Riley’s Author Page

  • Pew: Best Prepaid Cards More Affordable Than Checking Accounts

    Pew: Best Prepaid Cards More Affordable Than Checking Accounts

    It’s a classic good news, bad news scenario. According to research issued last week by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the best prepaid cards available on the market are often a more affordable option than basic checking accounts. Still, while prepaid cardholders are generally in a far better position than they were when Pew’s last survey of prepaid cards was released two years ago, the organization’s researchers have no lack of recommendations about how various rules and regulations could improve things for consumers.

    The report, titled “Consumers Continue to Load Up on Prepaid Cards,” examined the disclosures and fee structures of 66 prepaid cards. In general, Pew found that as the market for prepaid cards has expanded – U.S. consumers loaded $64 billion onto prepaid debit cards in 2012, more than double the amount loaded in 2009 – it has also matured in a way that is beneficial to consumers. “More consumers are turning to prepaid cards as a convenient tool to control spending and fees,” says Susan Weinstock, who directs Pew’s safe checking research.

    In large part, that improvement is due to the fact that prepaid cardholders are now an attractive market for large financial institutions. Indeed, the 10 largest prepaid cards are now offered by banks compared to zero in 2012. As a result, the report finds the best prepaid cards are now often lower cost than checking accounts offered by large financial institutions.

    Other improvements for prepaid cardholders noted by the study’s authors include much better disclosure. For instance, nearly all of the cardholder agreements examined by Pew included language explicitly stating that customer funds would be covered by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance. Even when FDIC insurance was not included, some cardholder agreements explicitly said so. Another move in the right direction, according to Pew, is that prepaid cardholder agreements now increasingly include arbitration agreements that allow customers to settle disputes with prepaid card issuers via a private third party decision maker.

    But not everything is rosy for prepaid cardholders. Among the report’s other findings is that prepaid cards do not offer consumers the same limited liability projection that federal law mandates for checking accounts. Pew also has a laundry list of recommendations to improve prepaid cards, including the elimination of overdraft protection, protection from liability for unauthorized charges and federal insurance for fund losses due to the failure of a financial institution.

    “While prepaid cards offer many benefits to consumers, they are a relatively new product with little oversight,” says Weinstock. “A lack of protections undermines prepaid cards as a safe and easy way to manage money.”

     

     

     

  • The Battle Over Swipe Fees

    The Battle Over Swipe Fees

    When the so-called Dodd-Frank law passed in 2010, one of its measures was pretty easy to quantify. A sprawling, complicated and controversial piece of legislation aimed at taming the most egregious of abuses perpetrated by the financial services industry in the years before the 2008 financial collapse, Dodd-Frank also addressed the amount of money debit card issuers could charge retailers when a customer made a purchase with plastic. The Federal Reserve was tasked with deciding what the cap should be and eventually settled on a number just below 25 cents per transaction. Estimates on the impact of the ceiling on that fee– known as a swipe fee because it’s a charge that gets racked up when a retailer swipes a card – on banks and card processors come to around $8 billion annually, a hefty chunk of change.

    According to a recent report from Bloomberg News, banks and payment networks are working hard in state capitals around the country in an effort to prevent restaurant and clothing storeowners from charging their clients more to pay their tabs with credit cards than they do for debit card and cash transactions. According to the Bloomberg story, written by reporter Carter Dougherty, banks and their allies have already been successful in banning surcharges on credit card purchases in Utah, and around 20 other states are also considering bills related to swipe fees.

    In a nutshell, what the legislative initiatives in Utah and other states is aimed at doing is preventing retailers from urging – particularly through the use of surcharges – their customers from opting for cash or debit cards over credit. At issue, of course, is money. Banks and card processors are eager to keep as many customers as possible in the habit of using their credit cards when they buy a meal or an iPod; according to the Bloomberg report, card issuers earn between 1 and 3 percent of a transaction whenever someone uses their Visa, MasterCard or American Express card.

    Not surprisingly, retailers want to see swipe fees associated with credit cards as low as possible, contending that they are already too much of an unfair cash cow for banks. “I view the banks and credit-card companies as unwanted business partners. They do not work anywhere near as hard as I do, yet they collect nearly as much in fees as the average restaurant earns in profit,” wrote Ted Burke, the co-owner of the Shadowbrook Restaurant in Capitola, California, in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Business owners like me can negotiate virtually all of our costs, but we are powerless to negotiate swipe fees.” If banks and card processors are successful on the state level, many retailers also won’t be able to encourage customers to opt for lower fee debit cards. Under federal law, business a credit card transaction can cost a consumer more than a debit or cash purchase.

Prepaid Debit Card Reviews, Complaints, Etc