Wal-Mart Has The Best Pre-Paid Debit Card

That sounds like fee-city to me. How many different fees and stipulations is that? I thought they rolled-back prices, not rolled you over with them!Maybe if they are going to college they could be smart enough not to get into CC problems and not to pay fees for using their own money?

I think most banks and credit unions will allow you to have several debit cards on an account, or to create a separate account with only a small minimum. Wouldn’t it be better to do something like that for your student? My C.U. allows me to transfer electronically from one account to another, without fees for doing so.

The Upside Visa card for credit-challenged adults is offered on upsidecard.com and it has no monthly or annual fee, it’s way cheaper than the Walmart card! I think the author of this article must have been confused with the other site Upsideclear or Upsidevisa.com that are for parents or teens…(and may come with a small fee).

Just to clarify: There are lots of UPside cards. Here’s the link to the UPside Prepaid Visa Card that we recommened for college students: http://www.upsidevisa.com/

MoneyManager is an intriguing card, but it’s a payroll card. You can’t get one yourself. You can only get one if your company is willing to use it in lieu of a paycheck or direct deposit into a checking account. In fact, you have to apply for the card through your payroll or human resources department. That’s a big catch.

And we don’t think it’s a good idea to give your college student a debit card on your primary checking account. The potential for problems is just too great.

Sorry Card Mogul but you are wrong about that.

You can get a MoneyManager card yourself. You do not have to apply for one through your payroll department. They want that business but will send you one directly and you just fill out the direct deposit form and you are good to go.

Just email them, thats what I did. They are adding cash reloads later this year.

No offense but thats the difference between those that write about these and those that use them.

Upside and Walmart cards are 2 of the better ones all around. If you don’t have direct deposit and your check is issued from an out of state bank the Walmart deal is the best one since you’d most likely incur a check cashing fee (never more than $3 through a Certegy service) and a reload fee otherwise.

If someone belongs to AAA they have a Visa Travel Money card with free reloads and a one time $5 purchase fee. The card says travel card but once registered/personalized online it works almost anywhere

The worst cards have fees for everything and charge you a surcharge to add money even for direct deposit and then charge to get the money off the card. There will always be some fee to add cash since its a reverse credit transaction but not having an atm network and adding a surcharge for using one is a complete rip off. Other than MoneyManager there are a few Bank payroll cards such as Bank of America’s CashPay that also have free atm withdrawals at least one a week anyway.

what a joke we (my husband and I)went to wal mart and got one of the reloadable visa cards the one that you get two cards,one for the student to use,the other for parents to keep in order to add money when she needs it.after a few weeks wait we recieved the personal CARD….yes one card that the balance from the temporary card we had sent to our child had been automatically transferred to ,our card ,which totally defeated the purpose of having the cards in the first place, thank you very much walmart and GE money bank trying to correct the problem by phone is the biggest joke of all. think very hard before buying these cards the fees are a very small part of the problem.

I agree with CardMogul. The Upside services offer various card types for various people/life styles. The Walmart card charges a fee no matter what and I would not want any card that requires my entire payroll check-as this is just a card and most people still have a local bank to maybe pay Rent/Mtg car note, etc. The Upside card does not care where the money comes from and for most of their cards they do not charge a fee to load the card. For every Upside card there appears to be atleast one fee-less way to add money to your card. I was simply blown away at the ability to immediately add funds to your card with another Debit/Credit card for a small fee of $2.50. I mean if you needed to do a bank to bank wire transfer at most banks you are paying a minimum of $10 and a maximum of $40 and you could only hope that the transaction settles in the same day. A person has the ability not to incure almost any fees depending on how they use the card. All banks and Credit card companies are ‘for profit’ it is silly for anyone to think we are going to receive products and services and pay nothing-however the Upside card comes pretty dang close to it. Regarding the ability to dispute a transaction, they advise you that you may communicate with their customer service area (for free) via email. I have communicated with them and it seems that they are pretty quick and maybe even located in the USA, more than I can say for Walmarts prepaid card customer service (what a joke). I think $1.49 is the cheapest ATM withdrawal fee I have ever had to pay (especially with the big banks-Wachovia, Bank of America, Citibank, Chase). So, Kudos to Upside!!! I swear by it.

I bought on of these prepaid visa cards and yes they are a rip off. I tell people not to buy them and just how they treat you when calling them if you can reach a live person other then that computer crap. They need to remove these from walmart as they are making a bad name for them. They never return your money and walmart cant help you with them as all they do is sell the cards.! Now thats a big rip off even by walmart !.

honestly i think the black diamond rush card is the best u only have a 9.95 monthly fee and unlimited non PIN transactions as well as 2 free atm withdrawls

This could be good but one needs to understand the complete set of fees and charges expecially where GE Money Bank is involved.

I started down this road and decided to check with Sovereign Bank. They have a student checking account that can have a parent as a Joint Owner who both can get their own debit cards. It is a non interest bearing account, has no minimum and no montly fees. You can refuse to OPT In to overdrawn as well thus avoiding a $39.00 OD Fee.. thus you have to keep track of what’s in there or be prepared to be embarrased. All in all, I can’t see why with these options available for a student anyways one would go to this prepaid debit card. Oh, and the 1st set of checks are free! Sounds like a good deal and hopefully there is no fine print that I have failed to read.