Kristy
Memphis,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, July 24, 2008
I am not too quick to get involved with online comments from anyone complaining about anything but I have got to speak up for Greendot in this case. I personally have had a great experience with this company. I have been a customer of their's for 2 years and they have not taken one penny from me that I wasnt aware of beforehand. The key to anything you sign up for is to read every single term and condition; most people do not do this and then want to moan and groan about it. I read everything about this program and asked plenty of questions before signing up with them. I pay $4.95 a month for this service and have a premier membership in which I do not pay for anything except taking cash out of an ATM (and ALL of them charge for that). I do not pay to talk to customer service and have never waited more than 2 minutes to get live help. You are also told up front about the online services so it may not be for you if you dont own a computer but I do and can see every transaction I have ever made and it is recorded instantly and has never been wrong. Furthermore, I have 100% protection against unauthorized purchases, meaning that if my card is stolen and used I will not be held responsible and my money will be put back on my card. Try to find a pre-paid debit card company who offers that! Finally, these companies exist primarily for people such as myself, who have had financial difficulties and cannot for whatever reason open a bank account and anything ,anywhere that caters to people with less than perfect credit is going to cost more whether it's financing a car, home, etc., or having a credit card. Have you seen the finance charges for "bad credit" credit cards? The reality is every company everywhere is going to sqeeze every dime they can out of you nowadays if you do not stay on your toes and manage your money well. I know what I put in and what I take out and I know what I can and cannot do to avoid excess charges and fees because I took the time to read the fine print. And as far as Greendot Mastercard Visa goes, I feel they are doing a fine job. If I had my choice I would have my money in the bank but since I cant do that right now, I had to accept the fact that nothing was going to be handed to me for free and settle for the next best thing and I have found that in this company and for $4.95 I feel what I get in return is alot better than carrying my cash around in my pocket. ** No disrespect to the person who wrote the report; this is just my opinion.
Tyler Durdan
Monrovia,#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, July 07, 2008
Disclosure: I'm a former Green Dot employee. I did not leave on good terms. All fees and charges Green Dot levies are outlined in the cardholder agreements and FAQ's, but as anyone knows, people don't read that stuff. Green Dot does want to squeeze every last cent out of folks it can but they don't always do this with malice. Frankly, Green Dot's system is very delicate and held together with gum and rubber bands. Folks get mis-charged (and sometimes mis-credited) all the time. Generally, Green Dot does the right thing and goes back to correct these problems but they don't have a very good system of finding the problems short of customer complaints. I would suggest attempting to call them to file a complaint, but that might be futile due to their over-usage of the voice-jail system. I can also tell you that Green Dot monitors BBB complaints so you may want to try filing one there.