The biggest drawback? All prepaid cards charge fees. In fact, some are absolutely riddled with them:

Although they don t improve your credit, prepaid cards do have some perks. You don t have to have good credit radisson plaza hotel or a bank account to get one. The amount loaded on the card gives you strict spending ceiling. And you still get to make purchases online and avoid carrying around cash.
The biggest drawback? All prepaid cards charge fees. In fact, some are absolutely riddled with them: There s often a fee for getting the card, another for making a call to customer service and more for adding money. radisson plaza hotel However, radisson plaza hotel if you re going to go the prepaid route, the American Express Serve card is a good low-cost option that can be virtually free if you play your cards right.
In addition to the monthly fee, another fee you can expect radisson plaza hotel to pay on a regular basis is an ATM withdrawal fee. If you re not near a MoneyPass ATM (there are 24,000 of them nationwide), you ll be paying $2 per withdrawal, plus any fees charged by the bank that owns the ATM.
You might ask how AmEx is making any money off this card if the fees are so low. Each time you swipe, the merchant gets charged a processing radisson plaza hotel fee. So, if this becomes your card of choice, radisson plaza hotel AmEx will make money off of you (well, your purchases, anyway), even if you re not paying much in fees.
Some prepaid cards will let you get direct deposits onto the card for free and then gouge you if you want to reload from a bank account, debit card or credit card. Others won t let you load from a debit or credit card, period.
The Serve card, meanwhile, has a bunch of free options for loading money. You can load up for free with cash at participating 7-ELEVEN and CVS locations, via direct deposit, by depositing checks through the Serve mobile app, by routing money from a checking or savings account, or by using a using a debit or credit card.
The only time you ll pay to top off is if you purchase a MoneyPak or Vanilla Reload and that s where things can get expensive. If you reload $100 via a $4.95 MoneyPak, you re spending 5 percent of your own money for the privilege of spending your own money. It s easy to criticize people who get trapped in that cycle, but remember: A lot of people are drawn to prepaid cards because they don t have bank accounts . MoneyPaks and Vanilla Reloads (available at a ton of discount chain stores) would be the most convenient way to get money on your card if you don t have a bank.
One of the biggest advantages of credit cards is that they come with all kinds of extra protections, from purchase protection to travel insurance coverage. While the Serve card can t compete with the most perk-laden rewards credit cards, it does kick in some extras, including:
Purchase protection : If you buy something with the card, and it gets lost or stolen within radisson plaza hotel 90 days, American Express will reimburse you, up to $1,000 per occurrence. It s a common benefit on credit cards – but extremely rare among prepaid cards.
Protection for the money you load : If the money you put on the card is gone as soon as a thief steals it or if the bank holding it fails, you might as well just carry cash, right? Luckily, you can consider the money you load onto your Serve card safer than bills in your wallet.
These days, FDIC protection for the funds you load onto prepaid cards is par for the course with reputable financial institutions. With the Serve card, things are a little different because American Express is not a bank, so any funds placed with it are not FDIC insured. AmEx gets around that by placing your funds into custodial accounts radisson plaza hotel at FDIC-insured banks, according to the card s website. There is some fine print to be aware of, however: It takes AmEx about a day to put your funds into such an account, and during this limbo period, they re not FDIC insured. Still, you can consider your money pretty safe unless AmEx happens to go insolvent the very day your funds are in limbo.
And what if a thief steals your card and tries to drain it? The card advertises its fraud protection – if a thief uses you re card, you get refunded. Careful, though That protection is available only to those who have registered for a Serve account radisson plaza hotel with AmEx. If you ve just bought a temporary card at a retail location, radisson plaza hotel loaded it up with some cash and haven t yet signed up for a Serve account (and a card with your name on it), you won t be refunded for any fraudulent transactions that happened before you called customer service. radisson plaza hotel It s in the fine print:
Money-management tools : This is another common perk among prepaid cards. Most of them have ways to track your spending and set limits. The Serve card uses a program called Reserve. Essentially, radisson plaza hotel you have the ability to move funds from your available balance to a special Reserve account that acts as a savings account for big purchases. That way, the funds stay out of the way – you can t spend them unless you transfer radisson plaza hotel them back to your regular Serve account.
Roadside assistance : This is another rare perk among prepaid cards, but it s not as good as it sounds. You have the privilege of calling American Express s roadside assistance hotline, and they ll send you a tow truck or locksmith. But AmEx isn t paying for it – you re responsible for whatever radisson plaza hotel the help costs.
Access to the Global Assist Hotline : This hotline will help you navigate any medical or legal emergencies you run into while you re more than 100 miles from home. As with roadside assistance, radisson plaza hotel you ll have to pay for whatever help you need. But this perk can be helpful if you re in another radisson plaza hotel country, in big trouble and can t speak the language.
While prepaid radisson plaza hotel cards offer the convenience of plastic, radisson plaza hotel they won t help you improve your credit. If you re seeking out prepaid cards because you ve been rejected for credit (and want to build up your credit radisson plaza hotel rating), check out the secured card offers here .
If, however, you want a reloadable prepaid card for whatever reason, the American Express Serve is a good one. The fees are low compared to its competitors (as long as you rely on the free methods of reloading), and it has a generous suite of extras that are rare among prepaid cards.
----- Editorial Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and has not been reviewed, radisson plaza hotel approved or otherwise endorsed radisson plaza hotel by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of the bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
I had this card for a coupe of months now and I must say it was a mistake to get it. Yes, reloading the card is somewhat easy Seven Eleven etc But if you try to do something advanced, like getting a money transfer from someone not in the Serve system, you ll be disappointed. No such option exists. The Direct Deposit option is no good for this (and frankly, it wasn t any good for my employer, who refused to do a Direct Deposit because Serve is not a real bank and their direct deposit info is not accepted radisson plaza hotel by most corporations when it comes to payroll). radisson plaza hotel So, if you are looking for a truly versatile prepaid card, keep looking!
I got the Serve card so I could pre-load travel money for foreign use. Come to find out that my money is held for an additional 8 days after the transaction. I can see that the transaction radisson plaza hotel has cleared, radisson plaza hotel but now I am waiting on the additional hold to clear. Had I known about this process in advance I would have never gotten radisson plaza hotel this card. 2nd, you can only pre-load 1000.00 radisson plaza hotel cash per day, they mention the card can be loaded at 7-11 locations, this is U.S locations only, Cash withdraw at ATM s in a foreign country are impossible. This card will not be part of my foreign travel financial plans in the future. radisson plaza hotel Very disappointed with the serve card
AVOID THIS CARD AT ALL COST!!!!! If you rent a car, or book a room with this card, SERVE will add an extra 15% to the pr-authorization. For example, the past three times I rented a car from Enterprise. They(rental company), pr-authorization my card $200. My Serve account showed an active transaction for the sum of $230. I returned the car the next day with a total rental charge of $83.33. It took SERVE weeks release the difference. And, at the time, I really needed MY money! It gets much worst! I recently made a purchase, for what should of been $153.00. A simple miss communication with a merchant.A bad cell phone connection, caused the merchant to make a totally honest mistake and charge my card $1530.00. Within less than 60 seconds, the merchant realized his mistake, and voided the transaction. SERVE has held MY $1530.00 for 10 days now. Serve has given both, the merchant and I, the run around via the phone, many countless times. In one phone conversation Serve even, slandered the merchant! The merchant does not have my money(fact). I do not have my money(fact)! $1530.00 represents more than 98% of my current balance. Part of these funds were budgeted for groceries to feed my family! WTF am I to do now?
This is absolutely not true. American Express does not charge you for standard point-of-sale purchases. $2.95 is the initial cost to purchase the card in a store. However, it is free to obtain the card online.
Absolute worst pre paid card ever !!! Sure they claim atm fees are free if you use certain atms Yes they don t charge you 1 time a month but they will the 2nd time Plus you will pay the atm owner too.. I can go on and on Sorry I got involved with this card . My bank card
Everytime I try to reload my Serve card with cash at different cvs it decline s the transaction, the reload is disallowed radisson plaza hotel the cashier get s a prompt specifying I need to pay the activation fee, or take card away from point of sale??? Has anyone else had this problem, radisson plaza hotel and do you have a resolution?
Does anyone know if AMEX reports the consumer s activity of Amex SERVE card to the 3 credit agencies? From what I ve read above, Amex SERVE is not a card to use to try to rebuild credit. And that Capital One Secured card is the way to go can a