Paypal Topup Card

...about 6 months now since Paypal launched their Topup Card, and suprisingly there is not yet much information about it on the internet, so here is my opinion of the card.

I've been using Paypal for some time, firstly to buy on Ebay, then to sell, and more recently to recieve money from certain survey companies. A bit problem from the point of view of the latter two is the difficulty of getting hold of my money. For a start, transfer to ...
...wrong.

The Paypal Topup card is basically a pre-payment card. You top it up with money, and you can spend it like any other Visa card. The main advantage over other cards is that you can top up direct from paypal, and it's free. That's the only advantage though. The card itself costs £4.95 to purchase, which IMHO is a little steep, although having never had a pre-payment card before I can't compare. It only lasts 2 years, and after this ... more

It's been about 6 months now since Paypal launched their Topup Card, and suprisingly there is not yet much information about it on the internet, so here is my opinion of the card.

I've been using Paypal for some time, firstly to buy on Ebay, then to sell, and more recently to recieve money from certain survey companies. A bit problem from the point of view of the latter two is the difficulty of getting hold of my money. For a start, transfer to a bank below £50 incures a fee, and it's also pretty slow, taking a few days (wheras electronic money transfer should be near instant). I was invited to get the new topup card, and feeling this might be an answer, I decided to give it a go. It turns out I was wrong.

The Paypal Topup card is basically a pre-payment card. You top it up with money, and you can spend it like any other Visa card. The main advantage over other cards is that you can top up direct from paypal, and it's free. That's the only advantage though. The card itself costs £4.95 to purchase, which IMHO is a little steep, although having never had a pre-payment card before I can't compare. It only lasts 2 years, and after this time another fee must be paid to renew. The big disapointment I feel is the fact that money cannot be directly accessed from your paypal account, it has to be topped up from the topup card website. To make it worse, the minimum topup is £5. Oviously, how much of a problem this is depends on your paypal income, but it doesn't really work for my Survey account or for low income from sales. For higher incomes from sales (or for that matter higher survey incomes, e.g those with higher payout thresholds), it's better just to transfer the money to the bank, even with the fees. I feel these factors though are missed operturnities, and mean the card fails to stand out from other similar pre-payment cards, and put the value of the purchase fee further into question. The card can also be topped up at the Post Office and at Paypoints, but with a £1 fee per transaction. A £2 fee is paid for each cash withdrawal made.

The card itself, whilst branded Paypal is actually issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Make of that what you will given the current financial situation, and their involvement in it. That said, whilst the money on the card is far from safe, it's not really safe anywhere these days, unless of cource it's in the form of well secured gold. Still, it's useful to know who you are really dealing with. Whilst a credit check does not take place when applying for the card (since you're not getting credit), security checks are done to verify your identity and address.

The final annoyance comes after two years of use. As I've already said, you must renew the card, with a £4.95 fee if you wish to keep using the card beyond this time. If you decide not to use the card, you are charged a £4.95 cancellation fee, and you only get your money back if after all fees and charges are taken off, you still have in excess of 10 Euros (equivalent) balence. I have to say, this came as a suprise, I know of many things that require regular renewal, but this is the first time I've come across something that also charges to cancel (and the same as renewing). That said, I do wonder what happens if you decide not to renew and at that time have no money on the card or in your account?

Overall, I would not recommend the card to people. It holds little advantage over other prepay cards, so unless you really want the ability to topup from paypal you would be better off shopping around. The problems faced if deciding not to renew are what clinch it for me. The lack of direct access to a paypal account, and the £5 minimum top up remove the possible sweeteners. As I said though, I'm not familiar with other prepay cards, so it might offer good value in comparison to those, but you'll need to shop around to find out, but if you are only interested in it's because it's paypal, and you feel that might be an advantage, or you think you can access you account directly, you might want to think again. 

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