Cashplus Gold Prepaid MasterCard

One of our favourite cards.

Overall:

One of our favourite cards: It’s clearly priced and offers some extra-value services that the others don’t have.

Good bits:

> It’s the first card to offer creditbuilder.

This is a bit difficult to explain but basically you buy your card, use it as you want to (everyday, occassionally or even just shove it in a drawer) and, once you have been accepted for creditbuilder and as long as you have got £59.40 in your account (to cover the monthly repayments for a year), the card will build your credit rating.  Just don’t do anything silly elsewhere (credit-wise obviously, feel free to be silly in other ways).  Only certain cards offered by APS have creditbuilder, this was the first so probably the most established.

> It has a free type of purchase protection.

It’s not quite the same as what you get with a credit card but it’s the best you will get with a prepay card. No other service provider of prepay cards, that we know of, offers this so we think it’s pretty good. Check out more about it in the purchase protection section.

> It’s GOLD!

Well, it is pretty, let’s face it, so there shouldn’t be any embarrassment factor when getting this prepay card out of your wallet.

>Straightforward pricing.

When you look at some other cards you can build up the cost of owning one quite substantially with additional fees, such as top-up fees. The cashplus prepaid Gold MasterCard seems to be a bit more transparent, which we like!

> Easy to change your tariff.

If you think you’d be better off on the pay as you go tariff you can switch it yourself on the phone via their IVR.  If you then change your mind, you can switch back! It does cost the price of the call, but there aren’t any other charges, and some other companies do charge for this or limit how often you can change.

> It's easy to get one.

If you haven't been fully verified you can still get gold prepay card, it just doesn’t have as much functionality as the bells and whistles version. But at least you can get started whilst you get yourself identified!  See card verification for details.

> Lots of tariff options to choose from.

Due to the range of pricing plans on offer you should be able to find one suited to you.  Just work out how you will be using your card. They have an annual  tariff (one payment and you are done); one where if you know you will be topping up over £1000 a month then you don’t get charged any fees (simple if you put your wages or all your monthly spending money on to the card); and the standard monthly and pay as you go tariffs. 

Bad bits:

> Upgrading.

Getting upgraded can be a bit of a pain, as you need to send in documents that have to be verified (to make sure they aren’t fake ones obviously). This isn’t a cashplus Gold card issue, it’s a legislative requirement that all companies that offer this kind of card will make you go through, but it’s still a pain!

> Getting your PIN.

You have to call their customer service IVR to get your PIN, which is easy but it means you get charged for the call (at 10p per minute). Okay, it’s not the end of the world but we think this should be free.

> SMS updates.

It’s a little expensive to get SMS updates of your balance (25p plus your standard network text rate), although the text service they offer is good. We think it would be nice though if it was cheaper and you got an automatic text to tell you when your balance is low.

> Not on PayPoint network.

Unlike pretty much everyone else they are not on the PayPoint network.  But they are on the Epay network and do have an extra 750ish retail stores where you can go and top up for free, and it’s almost instant.

Standard bits:

> Cashback.

Like most providers, they have a cashback site. Mainly for online shops but simply log in, spend and get your cashback.

> Award winning.

They’ve got truck-loads of awards, but so do a couple of the other big players.

> Customer Services.

They charge you to call them. So, if you can, always log on to your online customer account service and see if the answer  to your question is there.

Best card for you if:

• You have a poor or no credit history.
• You are nervous about spending online or anywhere for that matter, as you do get a form of purchase protection.
• You’re not sure what kind of spender you are, as you can change your pricing plan to suit you at your own will.
• You like Gold things!