Pay as you go credit cards

Tori_Bellatrix

robertoE3 wrote: »

This is a factual account of my experience with the card and I would be quite happy to discuss this in private or public and provide documentary evidence of what is fair comment about the card, if any person acting for club 18-30 were to object to the posting.

Firstly, this is a maestro card, not a visa or mastercard which is heavily marketed on the basis of its convenience factor and usefulness abroad. Where infact it is anything but if you encounter certain problems, their utterly lacking service means you d be a lot better of bringing boring, dependable, physical cash. You get the same rate of return on cash in your wallet as you do, depositing cash with them afterall. Yes, that's right positive balances on this card earn the princely sum of 0%, or an annualised negative rate of -15% if you withdraw the minimum on each withdrawal before load costs.

My experience is as follows, I signed up and paid for the card with an Egg credit card, (which has a credit limit of 10k) and paid £8.95. In due course the card arrived. Upon reading the terms, I noticed that withdrawls are £1.50 on any amount and calls to customer service are 80p a minute. Wow, what a convenient way to give my money away to the needy shareholders of Club 18-30!

The card costs £14.95 for a custom design, how much more does it cost to laminate a card with a digital image. I would believe somewhat in the order of zero, considering the raw material and production costs of the normal card.

It is unclear whether it is £2 they then charge for withdrawls abroad and £1.50 in the Uk; or whether the higher rate is just for the custom cards. There are also many other charge points, which would normally be free with a credit card.

You receive no interest on the card balance and the card expires after a year, thereby you need to get a new card from them annually, pay for it and lend them money in the meantime which you cannot access.


I activated the card and then the problems began.

I attempted to use the same egg credit card as I used to purchase the card to load funds, (to load £20 it costs 4.25% of the amount). So if I load £20 and withdraw £10 in the Uk, 19.25 % of my money will have gone in charges at that stage. Wow, what value !

Not only did their system fail to allow me to load money from the egg credit card I used to buy the 18-30 card with, (I checked with egg and the card is not suffering from any block and has £8,000 spendable credit on it), the system then proceeded to reject three other credit cards I have, with the response that my anti fraud score was not sufficient. Why was my fraud score good enough to purchase the card but insufficient to load the card ?

So then to customer services, guess what ?

I call on a saturday morning on a 8p rate number to discover there is no one in the office and am given advice to read the website. So for 8 p a minute you get a telephone recording.

I guess the 80p a minute service on the alternative number may or may not of been open, but I find it difficult to countenance paying the equivalent of £48 per hour to discuss the failure of their payment systems.

My advice, do not get a card such as this.

I have another rant about Lloyds TSB platinum card services but I ll keep that for another time!

It's not any of my business but I'm intrigued why you applied for a pre-paid card (with the associated charges and inconvenience of reloading) when you mentioned you have a number of regular credit cards that are available to use? :undecided

orangemollie

Oh, I did read this post with amusement.. I figured, no don’t reply, just close your browser, but I could not resist….

Ps – I don’t work for Club 18-30 ok!!

In response to robertoE3

1) – You make a relevant observation that no credit interest is paid on balances held within the prepaid account. From my perspective, this is not much of a problem. Its not savings product, and at best, I would only have accrued enough interest to get a packet of crisps! That said, it could be a fair concern for some consumers holding reasonable balances within the account

2) – Not sure why you feel it necessary to announce to the forum that your Egg card has a £10k limit.. It’s of no relevance, but I a sure if you call Egg, they may give you a credit line increase

3) – The ATM and call centre fees (whilst on the high side) are quite clear within the issuers terms and conditions. The ATM fee would still be cheaper than taking cash off your Egg card, although, I appreciate that you are withdrawing your own money of the prepaid card… Or are you.. It was loaded from your Egg card!… So, if you took the cash off the Egg card at the ATM, you would be changed a fee.. If you used the Egg card to load the prepaid card, and then withdraw off the prepaid card, you will be changed a fee!.. That said, there are cheaper prepaid cards available with lower ATM fees if you intend to withdraw cash.

4) – Custom card at £14.95. I am not an expert on card personalisation, but clearly nor are you, based on your post.. I suspect the photo upload, photo validation process (i.e. not offensive or in breach of copyright etc.), indexing and storage is on the high side! I would not have thought they make much of a margin on card personalisation fee.

5) – If I attempted to load a prepaid card with 3 different credit cards, I would be pleased that the system edits flagged it as potential fraud. I think this is a reasonable verification, although I can’t comment on “anti fraud scores”. Debit card processing providers e.g. worldpay and protex etc do have “transaction scoring capabilities” to determine risk. So something triggered some suspicion.

6) - I agree that reload fees are pretty high on this product, so depending on your spending patterns and intended use, there are probably better options out there.

7) – My advice would be to read the terms and conditions before you apply. There are a number of cards now available on the market, all with different fee structures. Some will be more cost effective, depending on your intended use. Prepaid cards are a trillion $ market in the US, so clearly some consumers find them of use! Cash is not widely accepted over the internet..

Ps – Good luck with your PLATINUM card… We are all very impressed

nat1nut

Hi, this is my first post here, so please be nice.

I am a field engineer (computers) and I would like a card specifically for my expenses (petrol, parking, parts etc). I currently use a bank account with Cahoot (debit card) to do this. For the second month I have been charged (illegally) for breaking my o/d limit. It takes a few days to transfer money accross and I, due to the time it takes to display transactions, have managed to do this twice. At £25 each it is getting expensive.

All I want is a card which will let me know when I've spent whats on there without charging me. I have money in my main account but find it easier to keep expenses seperate.

Is the following any good? Has anyone used one? It appears to be the cheapest (25p for loading, no spending fee, no monthly/quaterly fee).

https://www.breadcard.com/features.aspx

Any advice would be welcome, I know I should be able to avoid my o/d limit, but I'd rather it just didn't authorize more than I had available. Anyone would think the bank wanted me to exceed my o/d so they could fine me.

I'm not a cynic, yet.

Thanks.

HyperCash

I've just started using a BREAD Maestro pre-pay card (https://www.breadcard.com) it seems really good. I was impressed by the website and you can pay the fee via an SMS from your mobile. Mine arrived pretty quickly and the fees are good, notes on the back suggest it's backed by Newcastle bank so looks well supported too.

Hyper :j

[Deleted User]

Elliebell wrote: »

I've heard of a card called Splash Plastic, i ordered one a while back but never used it

Oh yeah, they've been going quite a while. They sent me a free one about 5 years ago. I used it to scrape the crap from under my toenails. No, really.

PedroH

davebrown wrote: »

I understand using these cards can be a way to help rebuild ones credit score, is this true with all the cards ?

Dave..

This is true. Cash Plus offer you a scheme that doesn't cost a penny and gives other lenders proof of paying back a loan! Look it up on Google.

I am a fan of debit cards, but you need to shop around. You are covered for non delivery with some cards. If you pay extra - because you use a cheque rather than direct debit - then they pay for themselves with that alone.

The reason why we have been so slow in having them is the banking world doesn't like them. They want you on a credit card because the real world throws up events that you cannot foresee and then you end up with expensive credit.

The golden rule of debit cards is "you have to earn the money before you spend it." If you can live with that rule you are fine.

The people that reject debit cards are the subscription monkey's who want to take a charge early - before you think of pulling the plug! Everyone else is happy to take them. Why not? They know the money is there. It is all the same to them.

I say don't sign for anything without knowing their renewal date. Places like Sky give you the option to chose it.