To Recommend or Not To Recommend NetSpend Prepaid Credit Cards- Final Update

The "NetSpend Nightmare" started on Friday, October 31, 2014, and in an attempt to reach someone via Twitter, I wrote the first blog post about this NetSpend Nightmare, so that I could link to it from Twitter, and hopefully give whoever is supposed to be manning the Twitter account a full picture.

Apparently, no one is manning the Twitter account. Or, maybe they are and they're just ignoring my Tweets.  I tagged their Twitter @ handle and hash tag'd them too... all to no avail.

I spent the better part of yesterday, still attempting to resolve the issue, writing another blog post about this NetSpend Customer Service Nightmare, updating the continued debacle, and tweeting each update...

My tweets were never answered and multiple phone calls yielded the same lack of results from one incompetent customer service rep, and supervisor, after another.

Finally, we got through to a very nice woman named "Michelle," who understood the problem, and who either knew there was a 'procedure' to resolve the problem, or she bothered to look it up, which no one else seemed interested in bothering to do.

So yes, the situation did finally get resolved. But 5 days of pure Hell was the cost of it.  And it was an unnecessary cost, because obviously, there IS a procedure for exactly what we needed, but the reps are so poorly trained that they don't know it, and they're too lazy to bother to actually go look for it... but above all, adding insult to injury, is the supervisor's 'arrogance.'

Every time we asked for a supervisor, we were kept on hold for up to 30 minutes, only to finally be told that the supervisors are 'busy with other calls,' and 'they have no way to call you back, so could you call back in 30 minutes?"  (Oh yea sure, and go through voicemail Hell again, to get to a human again, who is going to refuse to put the supervisor on the phone until you go through the 'process' with them, again, at which point, they will put you on hold, again, and either hang up on  you, or keep you on hold for up to 30 minutes and then tell you to call back in 30 minutes and repeat the process again...)  And worse, the 2-3 times we did manage to speak with a supervisor, they were arrogant and flippant, shutting us down completely when we were asking them to DO what 7 people CONFIRMED they COULD do, before hanging up on us.)  

If that's how you want to spend your day, then I guess I would recommend NetSpend to you.

For the rest of you, the card has it's advantages and it's disadvantages, like everything else.

The two main things to consider are the 'fees,' and the ability to transfer funds between cards.

I use both NetSpend and Green Dot cards.

Green Dot has no monthly service fee as long as you deposit at least $1,000 per month. Hubbies paycheck goes to that card, so we pay no fee.  If you deposit less than $1,000 per month, you pay $1.00 per transaction.   

With the NetSpend card, it doesn't matter how much you deposit, you have to pay $5.00 or $10.00 (depends on your card usage) each month to have unlimited transactions for free.

The Green Dot card though, doesn't let us transfer from one card to another card.

NetSpend does.

And the reason that's important to me, is because when I get freelance work online, my clients send the money to his PayPal account (I lost mine years ago due to consumer fraud that was beyond my control- this is very common).  He then transfers the money to his NetSpend account, and then once it's deposited in his account, he transfers it to my NetSpend account.  From card to card is instant, and it's free.

If I had my own PayPal account, we wouldn't need to use NetSpend for it's 'card to card' transfer abilities, and I would never use it again at all.

We're currently looking into other prepaid cc's, or possibly adding another 'local' friends bank account to the PayPal account so we can just send it to that bank when transferring out of PayPal, and then go up to that bank to withdraw cash.  So we can get rid of NetSpend entirely.

Update on Why I Will Not Recommend NetSpend

So, at 10:00 am this morning, my friend called in to find out what to do about the block on his account.

He said for once, he finally got someone helpful.

She put in a request to have the block removed and told him it would take 4 hours.

So, four and a half hours later, at 2:30pm, he called back, and is again, having problems.

I don't have all the details yet, but so far neither of their Twitter accounts, https://twitter.com/NetSpend  or https://twitter.com/asknetspend have replied to tweets I've left for them, with links to the last blog post, explaining the problem.

I've also found this Twitter account for them too...

https://twitter.com/ReferNetspend  (right, like I'm going to refer them after this debacle!)

At this point, my friend is on hold, waiting for a supervisor.

*******************************************************

Update-  @ around 3:00 P.M., after 7 different people have told both my friend and myself that they would in fact be able to help him get the money transferred with just his social security number, the latest incompetent rep informed him that he needed the 3 digit security code from the back of the card.

My friend requested a supervisor, was put on hold for a ridiculous amount of time, only to have this rep return and say that the supervisor went to lunch and that he needed to call back in 30 minutes.

It is no 4:41 and my friend is in his physical therapy, and this has still not been resolved.

Worst customer service I have ever seen.  Ever.

*********************************************************

Called myself to ask how *I* could transfer money to someone, via my online account if I don't have my card number handy, and "Lynn" told me,

"No, you will need the card to set up your online account."

Ok, obviously another incompetent moron at NetSpend... I explain, "No, I HAVE an online account, I just don't have my card with me and I need to transfer this money to my friend who also has a NetSpend account, with a card AND an online account."

She then gives me another 'knee jerk, robotic, pre-programmed answer' of "No, you'll need the card and the 3 digit security code on the back."

Yea, see, that's the PROBLEM that SEVEN PEOPLE have told us they could help us with, and then hung up on us, in addition to the last schmuck who said they could do it without the card, but they would need the security code on the back, and then told my friend that a 'supervisor' had gone to lunch and to call back in a half an hour.

The level of incompetence here is ASTOUNDING...

I wasn't going to get into it with this moron, I asked for a supervisor. I've been on hold ever since.  Let's see what excuse they come back with this time...

Why I Am Going To Stop Recommending Netspend

Worst Customer Service I've Experienced In A Long Time

I'm an avid pre-paid credit card user, and advocate.  I've had several Netspend accounts and cards since 2008-2009...

I chose Netspend for one reason... I sometimes do some freelance work for a friend who also has a Netspend card and we can do 'instant' card-to-card transfers.

Since Friday, this friend has been trying to send money to me...

However, he's met some obstacles, the first one being that he is currently in a physical rehabilitation center due to an illness, so he doesn't have the actual, physical card on him.

So he called to ask them how he can send the money to me without the card, and the first customer service rep he spoke to said that that wouldn't be a problem.  Then she hung up on him.

Then it happened two more times.

Today, I called myself to find out if there was a way to do it without the card, via the online account, and the first customer service rep that I spoke to said we could, and asked me for his social security number.  I told her I would text him and ask him for it, which I did, and he asked me if they could call him, and she told me that they could not (though they called me, because when I called in, I got a message about 'high call volume,' and was forced to accept waiting for a 'callback' which this was, so obviously, they can make calls..) I relayed this lack of ability to call to my friend, via text message, and while he was replying with his social security number, she hung up on me before I could give it, or even his name, to her.

I called back again, was forced to accept the 'callback' again, waited for the callback, got the callback, and this time a different representative told me again, that yes they could do it without the card number, but they would need to speak to my friend, the account holder.  I asked her if she could call him, and again, I was told that they cannot make calls.  I explained that every time he called them, they hung up on him, and asked her if there was a way that he could do it online, without the card number, and she kept telling me that he has to 'call in.'

Clearly the fact that every time he calls in they hang up on him is going either in one ear and out the other or just directly over her head.

Finally sometime around 10:30 PM EST my friend text messaged me to let me know he had fallen asleep and would try to call again.  Then just around 11:00 PM, he text messaged me again to tell me that this newest customer service rep told him that there is a block on his account and he needs to call back with the card number just to get access to his account.

There is no reason for him to even have a block on his account, as I never even got close to giving that first representative his social security number before she hung up on me, so it's not as if they can say, "oh someone tried to 'break in' to the account."

So I don't actually think that's the case, but if it is, what the Hell reason would they have?  He's been telling these jack asses for 3 days that he doesn't have his card number, and they keep telling him they'll help him, and then hanging up on him. If anyone is 'compromising' his account, it's Netspend themselves.

Now, I don't think that there is any 'block' on the account.  What I think is that it was 5 minutes until 'closing time' for the customer service department and the rep was just lazy and incompetent and wanted to go home.

So tomorrow, at 10 am, EST, my friend and I are going to call Netspend together on a 3 way call.

And hopefully we'll get this resolved, but if not, I will never recommend Netspend again, and I will seek out another prepaid card service that will give us the option to transfer from card to card.

#netspendsucks #netspendnightmares