This is a guest post from Miss M from www.misformoney.net. She appeared on my radio show not too long ago. Today she is going to give a couple of short tips for those of you who have or are considering getting a prepaid credit card.

Rebate checks are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Never fear, the rebates still exist, but prepaid debit cards have crowded out the humble paper check. While this move may be good for the company paying the rebate, they aren’t doing you, the customer, any favors.

Often these prepaid cards have fees associated with using them, especially if you try to cash out the balance. But the most common complaint is how difficult they make it to use every last dollar on the card. I experienced this first hand when I bought a new cell phone. The $50 rebate came in the form of a prepaid debit card, which I used for a few expenses. I thought the remaining $3.25 balance on the card was lost until a kind cashier helped me out.

A Quirk About Prepaid Debit Cards

What happens when you go into a store with a $50 gift card and want to buy $60 worth of merchandise? They will swipe the gift card and then ask how you wish to pay for the remaining $10 balance, pretty simple. But try this same transaction with a $50 prepaid debit card and your entire purchase will be declined. These cards only allow transactions that are equal to or below the remaining balance, therefore many people are left with a few dollars of value stuck on the card.

The trick to using that money is simple – use another form of payment (cash, credit etc) for the difference FIRST, then run the prepaid card through. Say you have $3.75 remaining on the card and want to buy a $5 lunch – pay $1.25 in cash first so the balance you now owe matches the available balance on the card. Next use the prepaid card to pay for the rest of your meal. A helpful cashier at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf showed me that little trick. Obviously this requires knowing the exact balance remaining (there is usually a phone number on the card you can call to get that information) and a quick calculation to know the difference you need to pay up front.

Get the Full Value of Your Rebate

Companies offer rebates knowing that many customers won’t actually cash them in. With a check, the customer can quickly and easily get the full value of their rebate. But with prepaid debit cards, companies stand to gain from every dollar of value left behind. Next time you receive one of these rebate cards, use this strategy to access all of your money.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post consider subscribing to M is for Money for updates.

Mr Credit Card’s Comments – To end this post, I would just like to highlight some of her more popular post which you should check out.

When your partner doesn’t care about money

Save or pay down debt

50 ways to save on pet expenses

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 10:24 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.