I’ve seen racks of empty credit cards at the grocery stores. I haven’t used one before. I’m guessing you take them to the courtesy booth and pay a certain amount to fill it? Then use it until the money is gone or you refill.
Is that how it works?
I’ve wondered if that would be a safer way to purchase on the Internet. At least there’s a fixed amount you’d lose if the card number got compromised. Probably less than $100.
Anyone use these cards? What’s been your experience? What kind of fees does the bank slap you with?
Also, is any ID required? Or can you just buy the card and use it without giving your name and life history? It would be nice if it was like a money order and there’s no name associated with the payment.
If you want to use it on the internet, you’ll have to (AFAIK) register a name and billing address with it, since that’s one of the ways a card is verified. (You could use a fake name, probably, but sometimes there are issues with shipping to another address.)
My experience: I’ve bought reloadable prepaid credit cards at Walmart before. I didn’t have to give any information or ID to do so. A lot of people/companies give them as gifts, so they don’t have to be purchased by the people who use them. But to use them online, you need to register at the issuer’s website with your name and address. I’m not sure whether the information is verified by them, since I’ve never tried using false information.
There’s a small fee when you purchase/reload the card ($3-$5), and there may be a maintenance fee if you don’t spend the money right away. They also make you reload a minimum amount, I think it was $25 or $30 the last time I did it.
You might do better to get a verified Paypal account, and use their one-time credit card number generator addon.
I was really in the dark with these prepaid cards. I’d forgotten that they can be bought and given as gifts.
I used to send money orders for small purchases on the web. I had a PO box for a shipping address and it gave me a degree of privacy. At least the spammers can’t fill up my home mailbox with their wonderful junk mail. That’s really my main concern. I don’t want my name added to huge junk mail lists and i certainly don’t want any salespeople calling my house either.
I’m not sure I understand the logic in why you have to register for them just for online use. I especially don’t see the need for an address, seeing as they will never bill you, and actually make money off of the fact that you will likely leave a small balance on them, rather than sending you a check.
Does anyone know why they need this information, and why they don’t need it for in-person purchases?
AFAIK, the billing address is a necessary piece of information for card-not-present transactions, but not for in-person transactions. I suppose they could supply the card with a default billing address, but that’s less secure if the card is lost or stolen.
Ask around before buying a pre-paid card at Wal*Mart or some other store. As rachelellogram mentions, they have a purchase fee, and may charge you monthly for keeping a positive balance on the card.
If you are a member of a credit union you may be able to get a gift card without that purchase fee, so 100% of the money you spend on the card is spendable via the card. I don’t know whether any banks offer this service, but it would be worth the time to find out, I’d think.
ETA: The ones I get through my credit union are not refillable, but with them being a free service there’s no problem with simply getting a new one once the old is used up.
I’ve received them as gifts and yes, you do have to register them before using them for online purchases.
I haven’t used a refillable one, but for regular old Visa gift cards, there’s a purchase fee. So you would pay, say, 105.00 for a 100-dollar card. I assume there are fees when refilling the refillable sort.
Another issue with them: using up the full value (on the one-time only sort): If you spend 48.95 on a 50 dollar card, it’s a pain to find a way to use up the 1.05. Most merchants don’t make that easy. And at a restaurant, if your bill is 45.00 they’ll preauthorize your credit card for more than that - putting it over the limit. So using them at restaurants isn’t great unless you have a lot of extra wiggle room in the remaining balance.
Personally, I think the drawbacks (fees etc.) outweigh the benefits unless you either have no other way to get a “credit” card, and/or have very specific budgetary limits and want the help to keep you from overspending.
Oh dang, I didn’t know that. My mom used to use a one-time paypal card number for her online transactions, and she was really happy with the security and the fact that it didn’t charge a fee.
Prepaid visa credit cards – is a secure way to get cash for your needs. It is one sure way not to get in trouble with any kind of credit card debt.
It works by depositing cash to the bank and every purchase you will make will be charged to the balance. It is maintained by replenishing the deposit.
I use them for online purchases, because of the complete security. I can buy from any website, even if it’s a small hobby place that I’ve never heard of before , and have no sense of how stable and secure the site is.
The card is totally separate from my real bank accounts and credit cards, so I don’t care if somebody steals it.
You lose a LOT of money, though—there’s a several dollar fee for the card itself, and you don’t use all the face value of it anyway (When you’re down to the last $6.95 or so, it’s hard to use.*
So you only get maybe $85 of use from a $100 card. But wasting $15 once every couple months is worth it to me…I like the security.
*( Yes, you can take the card to a brick-and-mortar store, but even then, it’s a pain in the ass to mix and match.)
You can use these oddball amounts to purchase gift certificates at Amazon.com. The trick is, you have to add the card to your Amazon account, then go back in a few days and make the purchase. We found when we tried this in December, Amazon did a trial 1.00 charge (that was reversed shortly afterward) as part of verifying the card. So the card that had 48ish dollars on it, when I tried to buy a 48.00 gift card immediately, didn’t work.
Anyway - it’s a way of turning those odd amounts into something spendable. Just list yourself as the gift certificate recipient, then add it to your own Amazon account.
There is nothing wrong with prepaid credit cards for some purposes but the concerns people are describing here aren’t among them. Regular credit cards already have fraud protection on them. You won’t be responsible for fraudulent charges to your card except up to a certain amount (often $50). Using prepaid cards for fraud protection is just costing you money for nothing. Some regular credit cards now offer temporary account numbers for one time purchases on the internet or any other risky place. You authorize the amount in advance and they give you a one-time use credit card number that is tied to your real one but goes POOF after it is used once so it doesn’t matter if someone steals it.
One kind is like a gift card. You put a specified amount on it when you buy it. You can then use those funds until they are gone and then throw away the card. The card is not reloadable. There will usually be an additional fee to buy the card. These will be called something like “Visa $100 card”.
The other kind is a reloadable credit card. You buy the card and put an initial amount on it. You can add funds to it whenever you want. There may be fees for reloading the card, checking balance, calling customer service, using an ATM, and monthly charges. Read the terms carefully. One card without too many fees is the Target AmEx card. There’s only a $3 charge to load the card at a Target register. If you do it online, it’s free. They don’t have a monthly fee like Walmart’s card.