Thread: Netspend Credit Card Reviews

Are all the Netspend credit card reviews bad? I would like to get a prepaid Mastercard or Visa that's not a ripoff and I had gotten a solicitation for the Netspend card. I went and typed in Netspend credit card and all these bad reviews came up about it. There was a story that claimed when you add someone onto a Netspend account all the funds are frozen and you won't be able to access it. Then there were complaints about every call to customer service costing 50 cents. I don't remember seeing that on the Netspend Mastercard webpage that should be disclosed upfront don't you think?

I've reviewed several kinds of prepaid cards and the best advice is, review the list of fees carefully!

The bottom line here, it's nothing more than a sales tactic to get your money! They aren't selling enough high fee cards so now they are just randomly sending them to people hoping we'll activate them and they'll get the fee. It's nothing more than your name was put on a mailing list as someone who is likely to purchase something from a mail solicitation. As soon as you add money to the card, they will take out a $9.95 fee for sending you the card. Then when you use a PIN to make a purchase you will be charged a $2 fee per transaction, if you sign, you will be charged a $1 fee. To avoid these fees, you will have to pay a $9.95 monthly fee, but you have to select the monthly plan online, otherwise make 10 PIN transactions and they'll take $20 in fees from your account. My favorite fee is the $5.95 account maintenance fee. If you have no activity for 90 days, they charge you for holding on to your money for you!


Signature Purchase Convenience Fee $1.00
PIN Purchase Convenience Fee $2.00
Card Fulfillment (Shipping & Handling) $9.95

Monthly Service Fee $9.95, billed on cardholder's cycle date
Signature Purchase Convenience Fee FREE
Account-to-Account Transfer -- Via Toll Free Number $4.95
Check or Additional Statement Mailing Fee $5.95
Lost or Stolen Card Replacement Fee Up to $9.95
Account Maintenance (waived if account has debit or credit transaction and/or balance inquiry within 90 days) $5.95 per month


As far as freezing an account, here is a possible reason. All prepaid cards have this disclaimer:

The USA Patriot act is a Federal law that requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account. You will be asked to provide your name, address, date of birth, and other information that will allow us to identify you. You may also be asked to provide documentation as proof of identification. Approval of your prepaid card application is contingent upon successfully passing this mandatory identification confirmation

.

For example, people would go to a drug store, buy a Greendot card, load it with cash, then go online to activate it. You are required to provide your correct information including address, phone# and SS#. People trying to hide their identity would provide false information. While they don't do a hard pull of your credit file, the government wants to know that you aren't using your card to purchase explosives, supplies to manufacture illegal drugs or hide from the law. Guys would hide money on these cards to avoid paying child support or criminals could easily hide their cash. If you get caught providing false information, your account will be frozen and this does include providing false information to get a second card. This is a federal law to try to stop these activities.

If you really want a prepaid, compare cards and fees. Cards like Capital One Prepaid will waive your $4.95 monthly fee if you deposit $500 each month, Greendot waives your monthly fee if you make 30 transactions per month, Vision Primer requires direct deposit from your employer to waive your monthly fee. The UpSide Visa card only charges a $2.95 monthly fee. Watch how the card is loaded, some allow you to add extra money via ACH from a bank account or PayPal for free! If you are required to use Greendot moneypacks, Western Union, PreCash, etc. there will be a charge to add money. It gets complicated too because I found a card that accepts free Wire deposits from a bank account.....my bank charges $45 to send a wire deposit. Most cards will allow you to view your statements online and contact customer service for free via email. With Capital One, you get one free ATM withdraw and one free call to customer service per month.

One thing I have learned, prepaid cards have been mislabeled as credit cards. Credit implies you are using the lender's money. With prepaid, you use your own money and your card will only be approved for the amount you have already put on the card. Debit cards are connected to a checking account and you can overdraft a checking account. When you receive a prepaid card, it says right in the cardholder agreement, you are not being extended credit and this is NOT a checking account. Because it's re-loadable, it's not a giftcard either. Credit Cards charge interest, over the limit fees and late fees. My local bank has a debit card with a $200 daily limit, spend $200.01 and they will charge you a $35 fee for exceeding your daily limit. Prepaid can't charge interest, late fees or overdraft fees, so they charge a monthly fee making them seem like a ripoff. Some cards have lowered their fees to be more competitive, while others have hidden their fees making them seem like more of a ripoff -- if you don't read carefully, you might put $200 on your card, spend $75 then find you are out of money, it's happened to more than a few people. I forgot which card it is, but they do charge a $49 fee to activate your card. Usually what happens is people get the cards, realize they've been ripped off and throw the cards away, by then it's too late, the card company already has your money and you don't get it back. I don't know of any prepaid cards that don't charge fees, some kind of fees.

I don't promote any prepaid card. Here's my suggestion, google Capital One prepaid MasterCard, UpSide Visa card, nFinanSe Visa card, Greendot Visa card and ing direct. Pay close attention to all the fees and reload options. Daily spending limits are another thing, you don't want a card that only lets you spend $200 per day.

Fee gouging is unfortunately fairly common with some prepaid card suppliers. Fortunately, all prepaid cards websites, including the Netspend card, display their fee schedule to comply with the networks (Visa, MasterCard...) rules, so it is easy to shop around and compare.

Don't forget to also compare features. Most prepaid cards don't offer much beyond basic payments and reloads. Others allow you to write paper checks to pay those who don't want to be paid in cash or cards (for example your landlord) or allow you to add discounted minutes to your prepaid cell phone directly.

If you ever receive a plastic card in the mail without having asked for it, then whoever has sent it to you is in violation of the rules and should not be trusted with your money.

This is an eye opener for me, I had no idea how prepaid cards were operated or that the netspend credit card came with that many fees. Then the ss# is needed for a prepaid card? The govt is overstepping their boundaries to do this for prepaid credit cards. If i want privacy I think I should be entitled to thAt. There's no reason this type of thing is there business.

For excellent alternatives to the Netspend credit card, please see our sponsored rankings of secured credit cards to rebuild credit.

I had great luck with the GreenDot card and wanted to get another for separate expenses, this way I knew which card I could use for what to help manage my money.

It took forever to set it up at least 15 minutes with the girl on the phone being very rude and robotic.

Finally I am setup and she tells me my official one will be in the mail soon, to use this one until then. Great I figured, I had somethings to pay for and immediately went online to pay them. One of the things was Netflix, which I have never had an issue with and have paid on time like clockwork.

Well 2 days into my "paid" month, I receive an email that there was an issue with my Netflix account and I clicked on the link to sign in. They had issues processing my new netSpend credit card, so I figured I may have typed it in wrong, logged in and checked that it was correct, which it was. I tried to process again with no luck..So I called the automated line for netSpend and the automated teller so kindly reminded me that every time I wanted to check my balance, that it was going to cost me $.50 ..ugh!

I am already upset with the issue, you charge me to activate the card and now you want to take away what I actually put on the card, to check my balance. The automated service tells me that I have so much on the card and a pending authorization from Netflix, so I am thinking that Netflix is having an issue. I call their customer service and tell them that I received a new card, there must be some mistake and I would like them to look into it.

After about 5 minutes of waiting, the gentlemen comes back on the line to say that the reason my payment can not and will not be processed is because my credit card (netSpend) has been placed on the stolen list. I can't believe it! I seriously had this card activated for maybe 10 minutes when I tried to pay and this happens. My credit card has never been with anyone else and is kept in a safe hiding place. So I call netSpend and they are very rude, stating that Netflix is wrong and again make me verify my information.

Due to the issue though, they would check it again in a few days and see if there is anything they can do. The very next day, my balance is now back up $8.00 from Netflix on the credit card but everywhere I go says that it is not valid! Seriously, this is the worst ever, please do not get this credit card, you've been warned by someone who trusted that this was a good purchase because it is attached to MasterCard.