Wonder what the term “issuer” means? The “issuer” of a prepaid debit card (or teen card or gift card) is the financial institution that provides an account (and typically a piece of plastic, or debit card, to access the account) to a consumer. Issuers can include banks, credit
A merchant agreement is the written agreement between a merchant and a bank that contains their respective rights, duties and warranties, with respect to acceptance of the bank card and matters related to the bank card activity.
If your prepaid debit card is a MasterCard prepaid debit card, you may enjoy some protections against unauthorized purchases made using your debit card (which is a good thing!).
Visa offers a similar Zero Liability Policy for Visa prepaid debit cards.
Not all transactions are protected, however.
Under MasterCard’s Zero Liability policy, you
Network branded prepaid debit cards are one type of prepaid debit card. Network branded cards carry the logo of a payment card network such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express.
These payment cards allow you to spend up to the total amount of money you
An “Authorized User” of a prepaid debit card is a secondary cardholder. Some prepaid debit card issuers and programs allow you (as the primary cardholder) to obtain a secondary card for one or more”Authorized Users“.
The terms and conditions of each prepaid debit card specify whether you are permitted
A “secured credit card” is a credit card used to build a good credit record for people with a damaged or poor credit score or for people with little or no credit history. A secured credit card requires a security deposit in order to be able to establish a
A smart card is a plastic card with an embedded computer chip that looks like a credit card. Smart cards may be used as stored value cards. Depending on the capacity of the integrated circuit, the smart card may hold limited information, or may have the
When you read the cardholder terms and conditions for different prepaid debit card products (you do read them, don’t you?), you’ll see that there are two kinds of point of sale transactions you can use a prepaid debit card for: “signature debit” transactions, and “PIN debit” transactions.
Here’s what a “PIN
If you use a prepaid debit card to buy gas, rent a car or get a hotel room, you need to know what an “authorization hold” is.
Authorization holds are used by many merchants (and not just when you use a prepaid debit card – authorization holds are