A few weeks ago I purchased a Green Dot Prepaid Visa as a way to manage my business expenses without opening an additional local bank account. Most of my business is conducted online and this seemed a perfect solution to keeping my personal and business expenses separated. I paid 9.95 to purchase the card and added $200.00 as my initial prepaid deposit.

The next morning I activated the card online and proceeded to use the funds for purchasing business needs online. The very first purchase was declined and I recieved an error message stating te charge was not authorized and did not go through.

Without really thinking I should check my card balance to verify that the funds were not taken from my available balance I tried 3 more times to make this online purchase... all with the same negative error messages and results. I then went to the Green Dot website to get the numbers to call customer service to investigate the problem when I learned that all 4 charges were pending and deducted from my balance.

I was instructed by Green Dot Customer Service to get the merchant to refund the extra charges and my funds would be realeased within 2 business days and added back to my available balance. I followed through with their reccomendations and had the merchant refund the extra charges. It took 2 weeks to have the funds added back to my balance because they claim the merchant never refunded the charges... although I have written documentation otherwise.

During the time I was awaiting the realease of my funds I kept getting a pop up window from the site when I would check my balance advertising a Premier Membership for $19.95 and a $10.00 rebate... making my Premier Membership a mere $9.95. So... I signed up. After filling out all the necessary online rebate request forms I recieved a confirmation email stating that my $10.00 rebate would be credited to my account within 1 business day.

Today, more than a week later, I still have not recieved the rebate. I have made numerous calls to Customer Service with promises from them to have a supervisor call me back to no avail and now am being told I was never eligible for the rebate in the first place because I did not sign up for the Premier Membership when I activated the card.

I asked why I was continuing to get the offer and even got confirmation that the rebate would be credited if I am not elegible... I of course got no answer to that.

I have requested that the full $19.95 Premier Membership fee be refunded and my card downgraded back to 'everyday' status. They have agreed to refund the money in 2 business days... I do not however expect this to occur considering the whole scam seems to be rampant after reading other posts here.

I am planning to withdraw all available funds from the card today and then again if the fees are actually refunded... the card will then be cut into tiny pieces and disposed of for good... making me happy to take my anger out on this inanimate object.

If you read the agreements carefully... the money you place for deposit is NOT Federally Insured in any way... meaning... if something happens to the company or your cash... you are simply out of luck... thay also place in it the agreement that when by using the card you cannot form a class action suit but rasther are agreeing to arbitration where you must initiate a claim and pay all filing fees.

I have looked into many other cards online having similar features... it seems maybe it is better to have a local account with a Federally Insured Bank than to take your chances on these pre-paid scams. There may be some honest Pre-paid companies out there... but how can you know which of them you can trust?

I think I will simply keep my cash in my pocket in the future where I know I can get to it without much of an issue... at least this way if I lose my money it is my fault for not protecting it... but I didn't just hand it over to a fraudulent company or theif to take it without a fight or simply out of ignorance as I did with Green Dot.

Lesson Learned! If it seems to good to be true.... it most likely is!

Kimberly
Greenville, South Carolina
U.S.A.