So, I was a Netspend customer for almost 7 years. When I started my job I was young and without a bank account and needing direct deposit, so my employer offered to set me up with a Netspend prepaid card. The company I work for has their own branded Netspend card so as a partner, I enjoyed free reloads and no ATM or monthly service fees. With those perks, it was worth it to not have a “real” bank account for quite awhile. But then a lot of these subscription and autopay services became privy to the tricks of prepaid card users (people removing the funds from and closing their accounts when due dates came near) so the card was becoming harder to be accepted. I opened a Chase account a few weeks ago, opted for my direct deposit to start going there, and was waiting for the funds to be used on my Netspend card to close the account. I was scheduled to move into a new apartment on Friday and had roughly $1100 in my account that would all go toward rent and deposits, so I planned to ditch the account sometime this week.
As fate would have it I woke up on Thursday morning to two text alerts from Netspend. One showed that my savings ($20 and change) had been withdrawn and the other said that there was a problem with my account and I needed to call customer service. I tried to log in to my online account and found that it had been “locked” with another prompt to call customer service. When I called, I was basically told that Netspend had opted to close my account and I would be receiving a check for the amount of my account balance in 7-10 business days. Even after pretty much PLEADING with a few different service reps and a “supervisor”, I was told that it was done and I would have to wait on that check to access my money. No one could/would even give me a straight answer as to why it was closed. Luckily, I had a relative who was willing to lend me the difference needed to secure my apartment. My only hope now is that this supposed “refund check” actually comes and in a timely manner so that I can pay her back.
To those of you who have poor credit or don’t believe you have the financial means necessary to maintain a bank account: There are other free checking options and y’all can do better than these shitty prepaid services. The fact that a company can completely cut a customer off from their hard earned money for that amount of time and expect it to be okay is insane.
Submitted January 13, 2019 at 12:25AM by shelbyc09 http://bit.ly/2M7B3Aj
