Prepaid Cards Guide Discussion Area

Anthorn

@tonytonyh

I wonder why Cashplus is still in business. In the current climate of a free basic bank account for everyone it's not needed. But I suppose if MSE will keep recommending it then uninformed people are going to keep on getting it.

Alternatives even if your credit history is shot to pieces:
(1) Virgin Money Essentials Current Account (No overdraft, no fee for bounced DDs and SOs), 0.75% interest.
(2) If the above fails Coventry Building Society Money Manager (DDs, SOs, Worldwide VISA cash/ATM card, no debit card, no overdraft, £10 fee for bounced SOs and DDs). 0.10% interest.

There are lots of prepaid cards: Cashplus should be last on your list!

tonytonyh

Hi Anthorn.

It was OK to be honest (or so I thought) The correspondence and the way they dealt with things in the end though was bordering on suspicious. Especially the out of the blue nature and the lack of transparency, a bank certainly wouldn't get away with it. I'm starting to wonder if they weren't making enough money out of me being too good

Leaton

We had a Pockitt card, really difficult to deal with, took forever to get a response then after a while they claimed we had to upgrade because we had reached our limit!? We then found we couldn't because they never sent some code that they should have done in the beginning. Wasted an awful amount of time trying to deal with them, USELESS!

Hibernator

I've been waiting 10 days for my bank transfer pay-in to complete with my new Pockit account. It should have arrived next day as my bank said it went by Fastpayment. I've had no response to 2 emails sent to Pockit customer services. I wouldn't mind giving it a week longer, but after just reading Trustpilot reviews it seems many other people have recently had money they've paid-in disappear in to a hole and they've found it hard to get a useful response from their Customer Services.

gregor9971

My pockit card has been getting declined. Pockit have told me that my account has been suspended due to a merchants e-commerce security breach and they will have to send me a new card but they didn't know what or who had the security breach

fluffymitten

I am trying to find a non-US affiliated prepaid Visa card for a forthcoming trip to Cuba. All the prepaid offerings seem to be Mastercards, which cannot be used in ATMs there. Does this mean I have to open a bank account with say, Metro, to get a Visa debit card that is good for overseas transactions?

I was hoping to get two prepaid Visa cards: one for me, one for my travelling companion, who has sent me her contribution to the holiday spends kitty as she lives overseas.

What are my best options? I really don't fancy taking large amounts of cash.

eDicky

fluffymitten wrote: »

I am trying to find a non-US affiliated prepaid Visa card for a forthcoming trip to Cuba. All the prepaid offerings seem to be Mastercards, which cannot be used in ATMs there. Does this mean I have to open a bank account with say, Metro, to get a Visa debit card that is good for overseas transactions?

I was hoping to get two prepaid Visa cards: one for me, one for my travelling companion, who has sent me her contribution to the holiday spends kitty as she lives overseas.

What are my best options? I really don't fancy taking large amounts of cash.

Metro Bank is a MasterCard and only good for Europe.

The Virgin Money Essential Current account gives you a VISA debit card, no fees on foreign purchases and £1.50 per cash withdrawal (max. £250 worth). It also pays 0.75% interest.

[Deleted User]

A retailer processed a refund on my Pockit card and it has come up on my statement as a purchase and the money not credited. I have messaged Pockit but based on previous experience I am not expecting a response for around a week. If you sign up to Pockit just be aware what you are letting yourself in for!

ozaz

I've signed up to Monzo. I hadn't considered pre-paid cards before, but what appeals to me with Monzo is the apparent emphasis on spending analytics in their app (at least from their marketing material).

Are there any other products I should consider for getting automated spending analytics? (other prepaid cards or otherwise)

What I don't want to do to achieve this is connect my bank accounts to aggregator tools like Money Dashboard or OnTrees (at least not until Banks explicitly condone access to these types of tools).

Anthorn

ozaz wrote: »

I've signed up to Monzo. I hadn't considered pre-paid cards before, but what appeals to me with Monzo is the apparent emphasis on spending analytics in their app (at least from their marketing material).

Are there any other products I should consider for getting automated spending analytics? (other prepaid cards or otherwise)

What I don't want to do to achieve this is connect my bank accounts to aggregator tools like Money Dashboard or OnTrees (at least not until Banks explicitly condone access to these types of tools).

Depends on how analytic you want your analytics to be. Soldo prepaid Debit Mastercard works via a mobile app and allows a weekly and monthly spending limit and you can choose whether to just have the advice notification or choose your card to be blocked if you go over your limit. Several new app-only banks are set to be available soon with analytics if their blurb is anything to go by. Personally, I find Starling the most viable since it already has FSCS protection but there is also Tandem Bank. However we might argue that such a bank account is already available with "B" from Clydesdale/Yorkshire Banks.
https://www.soldo.com/en-uk/c/family/
https://www.starlingbank.com/
https://www.tandem.co.uk/