Pre-paid creditcard Q

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

biko

http://ambrand.com/2007/08/10/a-review-of-pre-paid-credit-cards-in-ireland/

**Timbuk2**

I once had a Payzone Prepaid Mastercard. In short:

Pros

• Unlike 3V, you get an actual physical card that can be used online, in stores or at ATMs

Cons

• Riddled with fees. €6 to get the card, 3% transaction fee, €1.50 for ATM usage etc.
• Doesn't have Chip 'n' Pin, therefore needs to be handed to the shop assistants and signed for. This means it won't work in machines, e.g. Tesco Self-Checkout or Ticket Machines, as it requires a signature and not a PIN.

Depending on how much you would use it, I would recommend starting an account with Halifax or Ulster Bank. Both of these banks offer Visa Debit cards instead of Laser cards, which work exactly like Visa cards except they debit the money straight from your account rather than sending you a bill.
However, with both of these bank accounts, you would be liable for government stamp duty of €5 a year, but it probably still works out cheaper. The only con is that you need to have enough money in the account to cover the transaction, otherwise it won't go ahead.

Visa Debit is accepted everywhere that Visa CC is accepted, which is nearly every online store.

cue

Thanks for the info above. I need a credit card to hire a car abroad. Will a payzone mastercard do for that?

BuffyBot

Prepaid cards are generally not much use for car hire.

However that being said:

rubycard.ie wrote:

Can I use my Ruby Card to guarantee payments or make reservations?

If you are using your card for car hire, hotel reservations, general bookings or to guarantee a payment, the prepaid funds on your card will be pre-authorised and blocked for payment of the services that you request.

Some businesses - car hire and hotels in particular - may block more funds than you expect to use and this will affect the available balance on your card.
The blocked funds will not be available for you to use until the final bill has been settled and cleared via MasterCard.
Usually the unspent amount is made available for use within a day or two of payment, however in some instances it can take up to 14 days for the transaction to be fully processed and for your card to be credited.

which seems to indicate that they do allow car-hire without any special arrangements needing to be made.

I can only find mention of car-hire on an old version of the Payzone Mastercard site.

Might be worth contacting them to confirm you can use them before diving in.

Payzone's Customer Service number is 01 5245245 and you can email Rubycard at customercare@rubycard.ie