A decent prepaid card with purchase protection (cashplus MasterCard)

Member Name: gooeyuk

Product:	cashplus MasterCard
Date:	19/05/09 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Purchase protection and easy to top-up

Disadvantages: Can't top up online and don't use for hotel bookings

The CashPlus Mastercard is just one of a swathe of pre-paid Mastercard or Visa cards that one can use. It has its advantages and its disadvantages.

First, to address a point made in a previous review, CashPlus (now) only charge the monthly fee of £4.95 if you have a positive balance with them. So it shouldn't now be possible to run up a debt with them. However if you're using their "CreditBuilder" option then you do need to make sure you pay the £4.95 each month otherwise it may count as a missed payment!

The main advantage of CashPlus over other prepay cards is that they offer Purchase Protection that is claimed to be similar to that provided by credit cards (under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act). There is precious little detail on this, though, but if one uses the card for larger purposes (including holidays) then it may offer more protection against suppliers going bust or supplying dodgy goods than one would get with a debit card.

Anyhow, I've found my CashPlus card fine. I can top-up at a local shop for free and the cash is in the account in minutes.

Now if only they accepted topup online by debit card (as some other cards do) then this would be a genuinely good card.

And don't use it for guaranteeing hotel bookings either as the hotel's initial "hold" on the money doesn't seem to be re-chargeable and you end up paying again. The "hold" then falls off a week later, but until then you're out of pocket. Customer Service say that it should work fine, but it doesn't.

Summary: A decent prepaid card, especially if one uses if for "dodgy" purchases