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Where can you get a prepaid debit card?
You can often find prepaid debit cards at checkout lanes when you’re at the supermarket or at retailers like Walmart, typically next to gift cards. When you get a prepaid debit card in-store, you’ll often incur a card opening fee. As a cheaper alternative, opt to get a card online, which is often free.
How do you cancel a prepaid debit card?
When you decide that you no longer want your prepaid debit card, whether that's because you're opting for credit or traditional debit, you'll need to take some action. You can't just forget about the card because you could still incur monthly fees. In order to cancel a prepaid debit card, you'll first need to withdraw all of the money currently in your account. You can typically withdraw money at an ATM, through a transfer to another account or by requesting a check. Once your balance reaches $0, you can call your card issuer to cancel your account.
How do you add money to a prepaid debit card?
You can load money onto your prepaid debit card in a variety of ways, including:
- Direct deposit
- Cash at the register at participating retailers
- Transfer from checking or savings accounts
- Mobile check deposit
You can check your account balance online, via your card issuer's mobile app or over the phone.
Visa vanilla gift card constantly gets declined online My paypal debit card gets declined all the time too I need a new card to pay bills with & order stuff online I don't want to use a card linked through a bank account at this time So it has to be reloadable in other ways Also need to be able to get money fast from relatives and friends, electronically
My spouse and I are reorganizing our household financials and one of the things we want to do is have a weekly allowance for gasoline and at- or post-work drinks and snacks. We would prefer to have reloadable cards to prevent overspending as opposed to keeping track of receipts and keeping a running total.
Thing is, most of what we're seeing either has a number of fees associated with it, isn't reloadable directly from home by us (we must go to a business to get it reloaded) or is just a gift card that requires an activation fee.
Closest thing we've found so far is Bluebird from Walmart/Amex and Chime. Both of those require visits to either a Walmart or a Walgreens (plus a number of other choices that involve fees) to reload the card.
Our bank no longer offers reloadable cards, we discovered, but still has a service grandfathering in existing users.
Are we chasing a unicorn? What we'd like to do is reload the cards from our checking accounts, set up a weekly deposit to them, and disable any kind of overdraft--once the week's allowance is gone that's it until it reloads.
EDIT: For those suggesting "cash", we would prefer not to carry cash on our persons. We'd like to keep it to a card.