Optimum prepaid Mastercard

MarianneSpiderman

My Husband & I are trying to manage our monthly spending in an effort to save money & clear debts. We decided to go down the route of a Prepaid contactless card, I looked at the options on the Money Saving Expert website & from that chose the Optimum prepaid Mastercard as it did exactly what we needed without charging us, other than the joining fee.

We've been using it quite happily for a few months, then when putting some money on in November it charged us £10 for topping up using a debit card. This happened twice. We have spent 10 days trying to speak to them via live chat &/or phone however we are unable to get either of these options to work.

I'm thoroughly unimpressed with this card which given that it has the Mastercard name & I found it via the MSE website, I'm beginning to wonder if there could be something a little bit dodgy going on here....

Anyone else had similar problems? We will try e-mailing them today to see if we can close the account & get our money back

eskbanker

MarianneSpiderman wrote: »

We've been using it quite happily for a few months, then when putting some money on in November it charged us £10 for topping up using a debit card. This happened twice.

There is no such charge listed at http://www.myoptimumcard.co.uk/costs/ so it should be straightforward to challenge it.

MarianneSpiderman wrote: »

We have spent 10 days trying to speak to them via live chat &/or phone however we are unable to get either of these options to work.

[...]

We will try e-mailing them today to see if we can close the account & get our money back

There are various contact options listed at http://www.myoptimumcard.co.uk/contact/, or (visible) pressure via social media channels often pays dividends....

worried_jim

Just go with Monzo or Starling, both free, just transfer your monthly budget to the account and spend away for free. Keep it simple.

eDicky

MarianneSpiderman wrote: »

when putting some money on in November it charged us £10 for topping up using a debit card. This happened twice.

There's no such charge, how was it listed on your account?

Such a card is best avoided and has no advantage over a basic bank account. If you really want prepaid the best option is Loot, never mentioned in MSE articles but apart from £1 per ATM withdrawal after the first two free per month it's totally free free and has decent customer service if any issues do arise: https://loot.io/