pre pay creditcard

danbayford

Hello all
I saw martin on tele this morning and he said thereis a pre pay credit card out there that gives insurance on transactions can you tellme what one does this and also the pro' and cons of pre pay
many thanks danbayford.

benf90

I've seen in previous threads that the Cash Plus prepaid card is the one you may be referring to. I've not seen any others mentioned that offer the protection.

I'm not too familiar with any of the prepaid cards but from looking on the Cash Plus website it doesn't say in plain English 'section 75 protection' but it does talk about the process in the T&Cs and FAQs.

From the T&Cs:

9. REPORTING TRANSACTION DISPUTES
9.1 If you believe that any of the transactions on your Card were unauthorised or incorrectly posted to your Account, you must notify us within 30 days. We will attempt to assist you with any qualifying dispute under the MasterCard® scheme regulations.
9.2 You must attempt to resolve a transaction dispute with the merchant before asking that we pursue the dispute on your behalf. We strongly advise you contact the merchant first as this may lead to a quicker resolution of the dispute.
9.3 We may send you a dispute declaration form which must be completed in full for us to assist you with a transaction dispute.
9.4 We will not refund any sums to you if you have not taken the precautions set out in these Terms and Conditions, in particular keeping your PIN and Card safe.
9.5 You will not receive a refund until our investigation is complete. If the disputed transaction is refunded to your Account, it may later be deducted from your Account if we receive information that proves that the transaction was genuine and correct. If our investigations discover that the disputed transaction was genuine and authorised by you or your additional cardholder, we will charge you £20.00.

9.1 states they just need to be 'informed' within 30 days. Their FAQs say it must be in writing within 14 days of the transaction, so it looks like they need to update their FAQs.

The pros of a prepaid card (from my perspective):

• You can only spend what you put onto the card.
• They're generally more accepted than some debit cards (such as Visa electron for example).
• No credit checks needed.

The cons:

• They charge you for almost everything.
• As it's not using credit they don't help to improve your credit file.
• They can't always be used in place of a proper credit card, for example most car hire or hotels won't accept them in place of a proper credit card.

If you can get a proper credit card then I'd suggest you do. Just spend only what you can afford to pay off in full every month, to ensure you don't get charged interest.

skyrider007

Maybe he was referring to the rather overrated CashPlus prepaid card. I personally have a thing against all types of pre-paid card. Unless you absolutely cannot get a decent debit card or credit card then you get a prepaid card. Basically you shouldn't be paying to use your own money and prepaid cards make you do the opposite.

danbayford

thank you for your reply's... I only want a credit card so i can subscribe to internet sites and maybe buying the odd item and thought prepay seemed a way of not getting scammed ???

skyrider007

danbayford wrote: »

thank you for your reply's... I only want a credit card so i can subscribe to internet sites and maybe buying the odd item and thought prepay seemed a way of not getting scammed ???

If you're planning to use a card to pay for internet site subscription then pre-pay card maybe the safest way to pay. I have had problem with CCBILL and things like that with naughty websites before

danbayford

heheyoukow where im coming from

Paul_Herring

benf90 wrote: »

I'm not too familiar with any of the prepaid cards but from looking on the Cash Plus website it doesn't say in plain English 'section 75 protection'

Probably because Section 75 isn't applicable since Section 75 deals with 'credit' which these cards don't provide (despite the name.)