Netspend: Cards As Flimsy As Their Marketing Practices

I know this is unexpected and mature for this blog. I felt a need to warn others about a company that offers 'pre-paid' Debit cards called NetSpend.

I did not sign up for NetSpend. I did not even know of their existence until today. They sent me a card, a debit MasterCard without any instigation from me. Alongside it was a lot of paper. A lot of trees were killed to explain themselves. Yet, despite all of this paper and marketing hoo-hah present on their website as well, there is little to no information about the company itself. No Wikipedia page, only at least 98,500 people have liked their Facebook page (which has not much in the way of information or company history on it), and an even less optimistic close to 26,300 people are following them on Twitter. No one seems to really know or use this company is what I gather from the lacking numbers. (Compared to Visa, which has over 20 million people liking their Facebook page and 355 thousand followers on Twitter and Mastercard, which does not seem to have an official Facebook page at all and 495 thousand followers on Twitter).

Apparently, FTC (the Federal Trade Commission) found that NetSpend would withhold money from customers despite advertisements by NetSpend that claim you would get instant access to your money. Many people, according to this blog on the FTC's site, had to suffer financial hardships because of this. FTC ended up suing NetSpend for $53 million dollars as said in an article written this April - https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/netspend-refunds  .

Just to get a glimpse into the world of the NetSpend customer, all you have to do is read the blog mentioned beforehand. NerdWallet, a website that reviews banking cards and the like, gave NetSpend a 2 and a 1/2 star review. The author of the article warns that:

The NetSpend prepaid debit card has a nationwide network and an interest-bearing savings account, but its fees can add up quickly each month. 

To summarize the review, which can be read here: it mentions the $9.95 monthly fee that cannot be waived (which is for a FeeAdvantage Plan and not the Pay-As-You-Go plan), an ATM fee (which, according to the murdered trees, costs $2.50 each per withdrawal plus any of the ATM's fees, $.50 for checking your balance and an $1.00 fee for each decline), and an expensive overdraft program among other issues.

In the end, after reading all of the information, looking at all the paper that came with the card, and thinking about how shady this all is, I decided to rip up the card and dispose of it.

The disposing of the card is what led to the title of this blog: the card was surprisingly flimsy. I did not need scissors at all! All I had to do was bend and fold it until it broke into pieces.

To read another person's view of this, who found herself in a similar experience, go here: http://www.wisebread.com/netspend-the-story-of-the-visa-debit-card-we-did-not-apply-for

There is also some comments on that blog that shares more experiences and horror stories about the company. I suggest that you rip up the card and move on. If it seems too good to be true, it is. If it seems shady, it probably is.