Things You Should Know About Some Prepaid Debit Cards and Privacy Violations
There are a lot of great reasons to use a prepaid debit cards, ranging from protecting your identity, securing your money, and giving money as a gift to convenience. In this article I'm not going to tell you that prepaid debit cards are a bad idea because the truth is they're a great idea, but there are a few things you should realize that differentiate a store bought prepaid debit card from a "mail Movieman rebate" debit card.
The first thing you should realize is that although these cards are most likely made by the same companies that supply and fund the store bought cards, and Soonaspossible work exactly the same way, they lack one key component that the store bought card gives you that makes them valuable- Privacy and anonymity!
The thing about these debit cards you get when you send in a mail in rebate or that the cell phone companies send you to thank you for your purchase of their phone or cellular service and even the prepaid cards that you sign up for inside stores that are branded with the stores name, so you can save money on purchases or utilize features like cash back on purchases, is that all of these things require you to send in personal information such as your mailing address, your name, possibly your 1950 Bowman baseball cards address, telephone number, and birth date (age).
You may not be fully aware of it at the time but even if the card doesn't have your name on it, it 1967 Topps baseball cards in a sense does. Many companies realize that information is worth money, especially tracking consumer spending habits. The wealth of information you gave to get your mail in rebate just connected you to all the things you use that card to purchase.
Marketing companies purchase this information from all the various venders, and although the company only gets a certain amount per set of personal data, when they link it up to your other information, and any other mail in rebate cards you use, they can track a lot more than you think. People aren't aware of all the things they do and how they become interconnected over time but the preloaded debit cards that many companies are using "for your convenience" have a hidden agenda. This presents potential privacy violations that although done legally is done immorally and without your explicit permission.
To recap, the prepaid cards you purchase from the store like Green dot are not in this arena, in fact since you don't have to give any personal information the card, its spending agenda are not in any way connected to you. You may want to be careful however of cards that are offered by banks, or by companies controlled by the store itself as they have access to your credit card or debit card information if you didn't purchase the card with cash.
If you visit Prepaid Credit Card Reviews you can learn even more about various types of prepaid credit (debit) cards. All info presented is free and in the interest of a better-informed public. That site again is: http://www.prepaid-credit-card-reviews.com
