The best-prepaid debit card with no fees. Hey,  guys. I literally spent two hours of my life   researching every single card in the  first two pages of Google search results.   I have to say, when you're doing your  research and looking at websites like these,   you shouldn't just blindly trust what they are  saying because they do earn a commission from   promoting these products. I have nothing against  affiliate links, but you have to understand that   sometimes they might not be promoting a product  that's in your best interest, which is why it's   very important for you to be skeptical. But after  doing all my research, I've come to the conclusion   and I do agree with the two commenters on my  previous videos, that the two best-prepaid debit   cards are the American Express Bluebird card and  the American Express Serve card.

So there's your   answer, but I hate to spoon feed you products.  The goal here with my channel is to teach you one,   how to critically think for yourself and two,  how to approach decision-making when it comes to   your money. So I want to walk through with you  guys in this video, how I came to my conclusion   and what my thought process was. But before  I start, please hit the subscribe button and   hit the bell icon for notifications for my future  videos. This is part three in a four-part series   about pre-paid debit cards. The next video is  about how to budget with pre-paid debit cards   so please be sure to subscribe and get  notified when that video comes out. Okay, guys. So here I am on the official website  for Green Dot, which is a very large player in the   pre-paid debit card industry and they have several  pre-paid debit cards for you to choose from.   They've been around for 20 years and  they've served 33 million, not customers,   but suckers because I actually think that  their fees are pretty outrageous and this   is not a card I would recommend.

They're the  number one debit card in retail, yada, yada.  If you search through their site, they have  a lot of positive testimonials along with,   look, you go here and I've clicked through all of  these. It's not really easy to find their fees.   They talk about what's great about  their company and their cards, but   you won't find much, okay? So how do you  really find their fee schedule and compare   different cards? The only way is if you go down  to the bottom of the website and you go to legal   disclosures. For some companies it's not called  legal disclosures. You might find it under terms   or terms and conditions or maybe just the fees.  A lot of websites are just like Green Dot where   it's very hard to find what their fees really  are, but they will tell you all of the perks   that their card comes with. So one of the  worst ones I've found was their Cash Back   card and then it's not even on their website.  You have to go download the PDF, open it up,   scroll down their fine print and stuff and here's  their fee schedule.

So their monthly fee is $9.95,   out of network ATM $3, cash withdrawal $3,  just to check your balance on an ATM $0.50   and then another one that I wouldn't  recommend was the Green Dot Pay As You   Go Visa Debit Card. So let's take a look  at this one. Also got to scroll down.   Here is their fee schedule. It's a $1.50 per  transaction so it's not a monthly thing. It's   every time you use your card, whether it's a  deposit or you spend some money at a store,   each and every transaction is a $1.50 on top.  I can imagine.

It's going to get real expensive   for you and an inactivity fee. Just because you  don't use the card, so you don't incur this $1.50   transaction fee, you actually incur fees after  90 days if you don't use the card and that's   $9.95 per month. Again, with a $3 withdrawal fee,  $0.50 to just to check your balance at the ATM,   oh my gosh! A lot of the cards are actually like  this. They charge per transaction or they charge   a monthly fee, but they hide the fee so you  have to look here in their legal disclosure. Back to the homepage where they say that  they've served 33 million customers.   Just to have a little fun with this, I'm  not really sure if they've had 33 million   customers over the course of 20 years or if  that's how many customers they have today, but   let's just say it's over the course  of 20 years. So 33 million customers   and let's say they just charged all of them  a monthly fee of $7.95, even just one time,   they've made $262 million. So I assume they  have a huge marketing and advertising budget to   market to poor suckers who fall for buying their  card.

I'm actually really curious to know if any   of you watching this video, have you ever had a  Green Dot prepaid debit card? Please let me know   in the comments below and what's your opinion  of the Green Dot prepaid debit card? Because I   certainly do not like what I see just from seeing  what's on their website. Now, the reason I believe   the American Express Bluebird card truly is an  outstanding pre-paid debit card with no fees   is because there really just is no catch. They're  not trying to prey on unsuspecting customers with   hidden fees here and there.

There really aren't  any fees for most transactions that you're trying   to do and if there are fees, they're very low  and they're not for like the kind of routine   transactions you would do on a pre-paid debit  card anyway. If you sign up online, it is free   to get. So don't buy it in the store, sign up  online. There's just no monthly maintenance fees   with this card so you don't have to worry about  it. If you need to reload cash onto the card,   you can do it at many participating stores, but  they do charge a fee.

But if you do it at Walmart,   which is pretty much all over the United States,  you can reload for free there and if you ever need   to withdraw cash from an ATM, you can do that for  free so long as the ATM is within their network. The second card that I'm recommending is  the American Express Serve Card. This card   isn't for everyone, but if you happen to  be someone living in the state of New York,   Texas, or Vermont, then this is an option for you.  In fact, I actually prefer the American Express   Serve card over the Bluebird card if you happen to  live in one of those three States.

The reason why   is because if you live in those three States,  there are no monthly maintenance fees at all.   There's just no catch. So this card has three  versions actually. There's the blue card,   the green card and the gray card. I  recommend you get the green card, which   has free cash reload so you can reload at any of  their participating stores for free. Basically,   the green version is pretty much free all around  if you happen to live in those three States   because there's also no monthly maintenance fee  to go with it. In fact, I had this card five years   ago when I was still living in New York City and  I actually didn't know that I didn't get charged   a monthly fee just because I lived in New York  City.

I thought it was the card in general, but   I just learned this year that it's because I lived  in New York City, but it was a great card because   if you happen to live in New York City, Walmart  is not allowed there. If Walmart was in New York   City, they would just make all the small mom  and pop retail businesses go out of business. The Bluebird card wouldn't actually be an option  or at least it wouldn't be a free reload option   for people living in New York City because there's  just no Walmart to reload at. So if you live   in New York City, then hey! The Serve card is  actually a better option for you and perhaps in   Texas and Vermont too and that's just my thought  process. Like that is how I think about how to   approach and choose a pre-paid debit card and  basically you want to apply this philosophy to   any financial product you're looking at, not just  debit cards but credit cards, banks, et cetera. Okay. That's it for you guys today.  Please subscribe and hit the bell icon for   the notification when part four of this series on  pre-paid debit cards comes out.

The next and final   video in the series is how to budget with pre-paid  debit cards. So please be on the lookout for it.   I know this whole series is getting a little bit  long and I'm kind of overdoing it, but I did see   that there's not really many videos on prepaid  debit cards out there or articles on the internet   out there and I just think that people who  earn a low income are just so underserved by   the banking industry and the personal finance  industry and I just wanted to say that you guys   definitely matter. You guys make up a large  part of the population and I just wanted to   make sure you guys got this information, which is  why I go so in depth so I hope so far all of this   information has been very helpful to you. Again,  all the information on this channel is free. So   if you want to support my channel financially,  you can buy my book on 1001 Ways to Save Money:   Quit Flushing your Hard-Earned Money Down the  Toilet and if you already bought the book,   you know what would make my day.

Write me  a review. It would totally make my day,   probably even my week if I loved your  review and you made me laugh. Alright,   guys. If you liked this video, hit the thumbs up  button and I will see you guys next time. Bye..