Green Dot Prepaid Card Review
The GreenDot is one of the most popular prepaid cards, partly because I think you can load the card at more places than most other cards because of their presence in many locations. It turns out that they have pretty reasonable fees and some neat features as well. There is a both a Visa version and a MasterCard version.What Are The Fees - The GreenDot has a monthly fee of $5.95, which is about the average fee of most similar cards. However, this fee can be waived if you use the card 30 times or more a month or if you load $1,000 a month via direct deposit. There is also no activation fee, which some issuers charge for!
Like the better cards in the market, there is no fee for any domestic transactions. Furthermore, there are no ATM charges if you withdraw cash from one of GreenDot's ATMs. For out of network ATM, a $0.50 fee is charged (which is still low compared to what other card charges - some as high as $2.00!).
How Can You Load This Card? - Like most prepaid cards, you can load the GreenDot via direct deposit. You can also load the card at retailers, but this could cost you as high as $4.95 per load. Basically, you have to find a retailer which provides MoneyPak service. MoneyPak is a service developed by GreenDot whereby holders of prepaid credit cards can load their card. Retailers like CVS, Seven Eleven, Walmart, K-Mart etc are places where you can find MoneyPak. The best way to load this card is the direct deposit route since there is no cost with this method.
GreenDot Peer Comparison
In terms of fees, we mentioned earlier that the $5.95 monthly fee is about the average fee among its peers. There are other cards with lower fees. GreenDot does waive your fee if you cross 30 transactions a month of load at least $1,000. But other cards have lesser hurdles. For example, the Upside Visa lowers your fee to just $0.99 if you load $500 a month. The Silver Prepaid Card waives your fee when you load $300.
GreenDot - What Does Your Decision Come Down To?
Another factor to consider is that if you withdrew cash at GreenDot's ATM, there is no fee. This is a really big point because almost all prepaid cards charge a fee for cash withdrawals through ATM. If withdrawing cash is important to you, then this is probably the best card and you might even overlook the fact that there might be cards with slightly lower monthly fees.
If you want to get this card, just note that there is a Visa version and a MasterCard version.