Prepaid debit cards. Either you love them or you hate them… or you were like me up until earlier this year and had no clue about them or how they worked. Earlier this year I received some 10 dollar prepaid debit cards as payment for surveys. At first I didn’t know what to make of them, but I found them to be quite useful. While prepaid debit cards aren’t my favorite method of payment at the till for day to day purchases, I have certainly found uses for them.
Like everything you have to outweigh the pros and cons. Take cash for example, cash is always good, everyone takes cash and there isn’t any signing or pin numbers required. But alas cash isn’t perfect, new bills from an ATM/bank are quite clean but used bills can be full of germs. Interestingly enough I saw an overlay of a map showing the spread of infectious diseases in the US overlaid on a map that tracks bills after being released… do you know that they identically matched. Think of it next time you are getting coins and bills back from a teller… who knows what that weirdo in front of you was last touching before he handed her that bill (my guess is he didn’t wash his hands either). Credit/debit cards are no different, they are convenient (a little too convenient sometimes), but you still have to sign for them using a pen that is probably as clean as a truck stop toilet… and don’t even get me started on the whole fee and APR fiasco. Pros and cons to any form of payment just like everything else in life.
As mentioned earlier, I have found some handy uses for the prepaid debit cards. The first is sending as a gift, just like sending a gift card for a certain store. The benefit here is that most prepaid debit cards are Visa/Mastercard, so like 99% of stores take it, therefore not limiting the recipient to one store like an actual gift card. The other use I have found helpful is online. The big merchants like amazon or even a lot of the smaller reputable companies I have no problem using my real visa, but sometimes sites or stores just rub you the wrong way (sometimes it’s just a matter of not trusting that odd guy in dreadlocks running the till or answering the phone). I try not to even do business with these places but sometimes there isn’t another option for a part or item and you are stuck having to use them. This is where it is nice to have a prepaid debit card around for use, the number is visa so it works right away, but since it’s a prepaid, you control how much is on your card and in the worst case scenario, they can’t run up your visa because it’s a prepaid. And because there is no link between the card and your social security number it does not affect your credit in any way, again isolating you from strangers (some people are stranger than others) having access to your personal info. I like to give these people the benefit of the doubt, just not an invitation for identity theft.
That being said, be aware that some prepaid cards have high monthly fees or high recharging fees so you need to be sure to get one that doesn’t have high fees. Again, this goes back to pros and cons and what works best for you and your situation. These cards can be found at most retailers, financial institutions … even ACE Cash Express has the Pink Debit Card supporting cancer research.