We were out of money for the next day until the boat arrived at Aswan. It was here in Aswan that I a

Have you been hit with unexpected fees that drain your bank account? Have you taken out a loan that turned out to be full of tricks and traps? Consumers Union wants to hear your story because it will help us illustrate why consumers deserve stronger protection. Tell us your story so we can build support for real reform that helps consumers not the big banks!
Ever since the Credit CARD Act went into effect this February, credit hard rock hotel tampa cards have been less available for those under 21. This credit card reform is helpful in ensuring that credit card companies don’t weigh down young people with debt, but unfortunately other risky alternatives have popped up. For example, certain prepaid card companies are marketed directly to teenagers and their parents, boasting major benefits like added protection, control, personalization, and other perks.
Three major prepaid cards geared towards teens are Visa’s “UPside ” card , American Express’s “PASS” card , and Visa’s “Buxx” card . All three are set up so that parents load money directly into their kids’ accounts, and then allow their teens the responsibility to withdraw cash from ATMs, use the cards directly at retail locations, or make purchases online.
But if plastic is what teens and parents are looking for, prepaid is not the safest choice. Money is safest in a traditional checking account because hard rock hotel tampa there are legal protections to limit loss if cards are lost or stolen or if the account gets into the hands of an identity thief. hard rock hotel tampa And while all three prepaid card companies claim that their cardholders learn fiscal responsibility, it’s probably more valuable for teens to establish a relationship with a credit union or bank than to grow comfortable with a prepaid card’s dubious safety net. For some tips on setting up a traditional bank account, check out Back to Basics: The Bank Account .
All potential cardholders should avoid the lure of seemingly low costs and instead look into the card’s terms and conditions to scope out all their fees before signing hard rock hotel tampa up for a prepaid card. Common costs include—but aren’t limited to—activation fees, monthly fees, overdraft fees, dormancy fees, balance inquiry fees, customer service fees, and even cancellation fees. This wide range of fees may put you at risk of paying more than you anticipated. Card companies will sometimes minimize or eliminate certain costs in order to use that as a main selling point for people to sign up for a seemingly less expensive card; however, the companies may load up on other fees and neglect to adequately inform you of these steep costs.
hard rock hotel tampa One disgruntled Visa Buxx consumer from Santa Monica had countless issues with customer service after $1200 in unauthorized purchases in Europe showed up on her daughter’s account balance. hard rock hotel tampa But Sam on rateitall.com maintains that he “would recommend (UPside Visa) to anyone who needs a trustworthy and no-fuss alternative to credit cards. But don't call in for service, use e-mail instead - they're prompt and it'll save you money.”
Some prepaid card websites target teens through flashy “Easy as 1, 2, 3 steps!” hard rock hotel tampa banners, hard rock hotel tampa personalized hard rock hotel tampa cards, and special perks like 1% cash back. It’s true that prepaid cards may be easier to sign up for than credit or debit cards, but traditional cards may be worth the extra legwork due to their guaranteed protections. Colorful hard rock hotel tampa cards and “countless rewards” may seem advantageous, but almost all cards have personalization options. And the 1% cash back feature of UPside is only available for premium members, who have to pay $29.50 extra per year.
The key to successfully using a prepaid card is to carefully compare the fees of different prepaid card accounts, even if it requires hard rock hotel tampa sifting through pages of fine print or terms and conditions. It is also important to avoid succumbing to the glitzy ads many prepaid card companies use to cater to young adults. And as a rule of thumb, “Elite” and “Premium” accounts aren’t worth the extra fees. Hopefully, legislation will be passed to regulate prepaid card companies in the same manner that mainstream debit and credit card are regulated; but in the meantime, it’s entirely better to protect your money and yourself by becoming aware of the disparities between different cards and choosing the one that best suits you and your family.
I've used prepaids for some time now due to frequent over drafts hard rock hotel tampa some of which were my fault and some due to stacking procedures by banks to maximize the fees. I could write a book with what I know about these cards.
AAA Southern New England has a Visa Travel Money card that has free in AAA offices reloads with a minimum $100 load. Its not personalized though so what you do is claim you lost it and they send you a personalized card for $4. I believe there is an initial $10 fee to get the card after that outside of atm fees which for a purchase card you wouldn't have there is no charge.
Lastly the MoneyNetwork card sold at 7-Eleven nationwide is only $2 to reload and its done via swiping the card which is safe, instant and for which you get a receipt with a confirmation number etc. There is a $2 monthly hard rock hotel tampa fee.
Disclosure: I run the company behind the Visa UPside card. We have 3 products for teens with various capabilities and fees. The entry level product has no activation fee and no monthly fee. The most expansive one has no activation fee and a $2.99 monthly fee.
To Simone's point about the difference in consumer protection with a bank account, it is true that the protection of prepaid cards by policies like Visa's zero liability is limited to POS purchases while a bank account would be protected for other methids of spending, but then teens usually do not write checks or initiate bank transfers from checking accounts, so the protection of prepaid cards is pretty much what they need anyway.
The problem with free loading via bank account is the amount of time it takes for the money to appear in the account. Its done through an ACH transfer and can take 2 to 5 business days. So a transfer made on a Thursday or Friday likely won't be usable till midweek at best. The card company has no control over the time involved as that would be a function of who the transferring bank uses for ACH transfers. Cashedge is a big player in the ACH game and they are notoriously hard rock hotel tampa slow.
I find it odd that a check can be read optically and cleared within an hour for purposes of the bank not the consumer or direct deposit is done within a day yet ACH transfers can take a week. There is something Defend Your Dollars needs to investigate. hard rock hotel tampa Almost all prepaid cards allow free ACH transfers and if the transfers were timely it would be a great way to load the cards.
In regards to the fact that the charge for reloads comes from the reload network or the retailer, really what does that mean to the card user that pays the fee? All they care about is that the money is usable quickly (making bank transfers a terrible way to reload) reliable and that it is less costly.
My girlfriend and I visited Egypt in late March, into April, 2010. Prior to departure, I visited my local AAA office in Springfield, PA and was looking to secure Travelers Checks. I went with the intention of securing American Express travelers hard rock hotel tampa checks, something I have been doing for many years. However, AAA stated that they no longer carried them and that merchants abroad no longer accept them. However, my use of travelers checks is isolated to cashing them at an Amex office only for cash. So ultimately, this AAA Travel hard rock hotel tampa Card was strongly encouraged as their newest product to safely access cash abroad with theft prevention hard rock hotel tampa safeguards. They sold me on the fact that if it was stolen or compromised, they would send a new one overnight, and touted its protections against theft, etc…
We bought it and loaded it with $1,400. I used all the necessary precautions that one needs to exercise when withdrawing money from an ATM, covering my typing hand when typing in my PIN number, etc. I was told at the Marriott to only use ATM machines that have a flashing green anti-tampering card insert hard rock hotel tampa port, in which I followed through on.
After a few days in Cairo, we then we took an inter-country flight down to Luxor, Egypt. We then boarded a Nile cruise boat and this when things got sketchy. As we were traveling down the Nile River, we stopped for the night in the town of Kom Ombo. It was here where we experienced the first anomaly. We attempted to withdraw money from an ATM directly across the street from the cruise boats were docked and it did not work. I assumed the machine was out of money, but I tried it twice nonetheless. It was the only ATM near all the tourist areas and as a result, we were out of money at this point and had to borrow hard rock hotel tampa from some nice British family we met on the boat. However, having lived and travelled abroad, I have a keen awareness of my surroundings and after using the cash strapped ATM in Kom Ombo, I did notice a kid who was lingering near us, and upon our walking away from the machine, he ran off and was yelling something hard rock hotel tampa to someone. At the time, I thought of it as quite weird, and started wondering if we somehow just scammed, but ultimately, I think it had nothing to do with our problem.
We were out of money for the next day until the boat arrived at Aswan. It was here in Aswan that I asked our tour guide to take us to an ATM machine. hard rock hotel tampa He took us to the Barclay’s hard rock hotel tampa bank. I looked up the address online and the address is: “Beside Hadiket El Shagara- in front of the Radio & Television hard rock hotel tampa building, El Sadat St., Bandar, Aswan”.
When we arrived at this branch, there was a security guard sitting at a desk as well as a man with whom the security guard was chatting with. The non-security guard man, greeted me. I attempted to withdraw 2,000 Egyptian pounds, however, this request did not go through. I was bewildered by this because I knew we had enough hard rock hotel tampa money, but figured it was some kind of restriction on how much you could withdraw in one transaction. I attempted again to w