Post by Psy on Feb 20, 2014 19:01:55 GMT -5
There is definitely a difference. A gift card is one that is one that can not be recharged, refilled, or have money added to the balance. You can use it online for a lot of things, but only for purchases within the country it was registered to. For example, a US card can not be used to make purchases from Brazil. Gift cards have a lot of restrictions on purchases such as on recurring payments. You can't use it for them. You also can't use it for some cash service with Paypal. I don't remember the exact ones, but I think I was trying to transfer money to a friend through Paypal and that's a restricted transaction. I also tried to send money through Xoom (or something like that) and that was also a restricted transaction.
A pre-paid card is different in that you can add funds to it (usually you are charged a fee every time you do so), there is typically a monthly fee (the one I had through Wal*Mart was $3.95/month /per refill) but you can use it for recurring payments and for payments abroad.
If the card you buy has a cost on the front of it - that's a prepaid gift card. The standard pre-paid cards don't have limits or defined amounts of money you can have on it at any time. The exception to this is that when you reload/refill the card with more money you have to put at least $20 in at a time (I've seen some that were $15 minimum, mine was $20). The charging/refill fee is on top of that.
Be sure you know what you're getting into if you choose to go this route, I would hate for some people to waste money on things that didn't meet their needs.
A pre-paid card is different in that you can add funds to it (usually you are charged a fee every time you do so), there is typically a monthly fee (the one I had through Wal*Mart was $3.95/month /per refill) but you can use it for recurring payments and for payments abroad.
If the card you buy has a cost on the front of it - that's a prepaid gift card. The standard pre-paid cards don't have limits or defined amounts of money you can have on it at any time. The exception to this is that when you reload/refill the card with more money you have to put at least $20 in at a time (I've seen some that were $15 minimum, mine was $20). The charging/refill fee is on top of that.
Be sure you know what you're getting into if you choose to go this route, I would hate for some people to waste money on things that didn't meet their needs.
