Posted on 06/27/2014 9:48:44 PM PDT by jeannineinsd
I use a prepaid card every month to pay my few utility bills and an occasional internet purchase. Other than that its cash, my buying habits are no ones business. And yes, I do have a bank account, although I only use it to receive my direct deposit.
——All these prepaid debit cards have a bank behind them——
How about walmart?
And here is why the FedGov doesn't like it. Prepaid cards can be used to perform anonymous transactions over the internet.
We know that when we make purchases or do searches we get advertisements for similar items on our subsequent searches ,
If I want the NYT Sunday for the magazine copy of the crossword I buy it, get the magazine out while waiting for coffe and throw the rest of the paper in starbx garbage so no one will read it
I use cas. Otherwise, no matter what payment I use, I get solicited by the Times via phone or mail within the week
I’m already trained by this to use cash when I want privacy
I see a story like this and I’m thinking with health care as part of the govt, who controls the money, to watch for moves on cash and prepaid cards
Next day i see this story
With government health care, people pay for others’ procedures and treatments.
People think that’s not going to affect their freedom.and privacy.
Ok
Interesting date - I have seen a few articles (mostly obscure) that the Gubmint is instituting new cash-flow rules on 1 July. More controls coming as ever smaller amounts of cash are reported/monitored to 'prevent crime" while further putting government scrutiny and control in our lives.
Relentless.....
The prepaid card was great. The debit card isn't as good, because it attaches to ones checking account. With the prepaid, I took money out of the bank in person and put the cash on the prepaid. Paying with that divulged no personal information.
The only reason I stopped using the prepaid is that it added so many fees and wanted so much more information that it defeated its own purpose.
Debit cards are linked to your checking account so they provide access to your information. Prepaid cards aren’t linked....you pay cash and get a card. Using it does not tally your purchase or link to you any other way.
And prepaid service (which I’ve had for a few years now) misses out on the (depending in your state) additional 14-22% monthly taxes and fees that postpaid service has. I’m sure, sooner than later, the govt. is going to tap into the prepaid market for several reasons, revenues being reason #1.
I have AT&T prepaid service. I pay ~$53.30/month for service for both my iPhone and iPad. My friend who has postpaid AT&T service for the same devices pays over $90/month.
That adds up over time. What I save on a monthly/yearly basis more than pays for me to buy my own devices and resell them and make money, which again, I’ve been doing for years.
Cell phone service in the USA is one of the biggest ripoffs going.
Yep!
I’m a miles whore. I charge almost everything* on my MC and get my 2x rewards. I saved over $600 on my last trip to Italy by redeeming my miles.
Govt. wants to see my weekly grocery purchases? Here you go, stick it up your a*s. Want to see how much gas I buy weekly/monthly/yearly? Have fun, you tool.
I bought my iPad purposely with my AMEX card because it doubled the warranty on it for free. So, I saved money not buying or needing Apple Care. Thank you, AMEX**!
*Things I don’t want showing up, I pay for with ca$h. DUUUUHHHHHH!
**AMEX typically has better electronics warranty coverage than MC or Visa.
Completely agree.
Can’t do that anymore. Because of some ‘Act’ you can only transfer money between accounts 6 times per month and then they start charging you for it.
Not every one wants, or can get a bank account.
Similar to the credit bureaus that track your credit card account and payments, there are two bank account tracking agencies Chex and EWS. If an individual has run into problems with Non Sufficient Fund charges, it is logged and reported. An adverse Chex report can prevent and individual from opening a bank account for several years.
I don't think so. From the Bancorp FDIC consent decree, page three:
The Bank will be restricted from issuing new non-benefit related reloadable prepaid card programs
As I read it, the FDIC doesn't seem to concerned about benefit related reloadaable prepaid cards.
The Bancorp FDIC consent decree:
http://www.snl.com/Cache/24005655.pdf?IID=4054569&FID=24005655&O=3&OSID=9
The prepaid gift card industry is very large. (I recently interviewed with a firm that supports the financial data transactions for such cards.) One canary falling might not mean much if the cage in the mine has 10,000 of them. I think FDIC wants to make it more difficult for them to be used in money laundering. More bureaucratic overhead, perhaps government backdoors. But not to extinguish the concept altogether. That would unleash an enormous lobbying backlash.
Everyone can't get a bank account. Banks can refuse to open accounts for individuals with a negative Chex report.
The WalMart Money Card is backed by Green Dot Bank.
https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/walmart/account/legal-info-page?doc=cha&productname=osbasic
Who is Green Dot Bank? A subsidiary of Walmart?
For those who are unfamiliar, they are similar to a prepaid card but they are provided by employers through a pay card provider (and even payroll services like ADP and Ceridian offer them) as an alternative to traditional direct deposit into a bank account. Many employers, like my company either mandate direct deposit as a condition of employment (where allowed by state law) or for those who are “unbanked” they deposit the pay to a Pay Card. A Pay Card looks just like a credit or debit card and typically has a VISA or MasterCard logo on it.
But unlike pre-paid cards, there are restrictions on them as to the fees that can be charged. DOL regs state that you as the employer cannot deduct a fee or charge an employee a fee for getting paid. So Pay Cards typically allow at least one cash withdraw and or transfer to another account or the ability to convert the entire pay to a check each and every pay period with no charge and access to ATM’s that don’t charge a fee within a certain mile radius of the employee’s work site. Many can be used to make purchases, both at POS and online and have bill paying options just like a traditional bank and often allow the card holder to make their own deposits into them or another direct deposit (say that of a spouse’s employer) and they are portable, meaning that when the employee leaves the employer, they can still use the pay card and continue to put money into it, even via a new employer’s direct deposit.
We in payroll love “paperless” pay and companies love the reduced costs over issuing paper paychecks.
https://www.paperlesspay.org/Paperlesspay/payrollcards.asp
Green Dot is a corporation that is a large issuer of prepaid cards. Green Dot partners with WalMart for the WalMart branded Money Cards.
The consent decree noted in the original article is for Bancorp. I don’t know that Green Dot is affected by it.
Here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dot_Corporation
https://www.greendot.com/greendot
Overall, that’s shortsighted. Fine for doors, gas, etc. if getting $20-100 is that important to you. But be very mindful of how you use your card to purchase anything that can be identified and recorded electronically.
Think of the old “how would that look on the front page of the NYT” warning. This is even worse, as has been set out on this thread. Ironic that “privacy” was used to advance abortion rights, and for gays’ use of privacy to prevent anyone from knowing if they have AIDS, but the rest of us don’t have those same privacy rights, it seems.
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