Comments on: Kiddie Credit Cards?

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:19:19 +0000

My son had an Allowcard, and just to give you an idea what an inconvience it was for him to use it is outrages.
My 18 yearl old son recently flew to Europe, and with him he had his Allowcard, naturally it had an ATM pin to be able to use all over the world. Not so fast though.
When he was stranded at Kastrup airport I couldn’t get hold of Allowcard, I waited for 30 min on the phone to hold music, and finally a voice said that I could leave a message because they were so overloaded with calls and the were understaffed, and asked me to call back later. When the truth was, there was no one there at all at the customer service desk.
When I finally got a hold of the founder of Allowcard, I was furious. In the Agreement there is nicely stated all the fees for withdrawing money abroad, and all the “MCC Codes were allowed”. MCC Codes, are what you allow your kids to shop at, in the codes there is one that says “international affairs”, someone would think, yes that means international traveling etc.
No, it meant nothing of the sort, didn’t get an answer what it meant either. So then I finally been jerked around and connected with two other people, and the last person said that I had to call them to “TURN ON” the card for the perticular country he was visiting, and he added that WE ALL have to do that to our own cards! I was??? I never have to do that to my cards. Well then he excused himself that this was a ‘kid’ product. I asked him where in the agreement it stated that I had to TURN ON the card, and he said verbatum: We don’t have to state that in the Agreement. Then I was asking how was I suppose to know that I am suppose to call and TURN ON the card? All the fees when it came to domestic use and international use was nicely stated but nothing else. He said that we were not getting anywhere, and it was leading into an argument, and hung up on me. This is great customer service, and understand while they charge you fees to withdraw money, fees to make purchases outside the country, fees to have this account, while a savings account is free. No, turn your back on the Allowcard and their gimmick, because all you do is paying for their obnoxious existent. It is not as great as they want to state it to be.

By: Crystal

Crystal — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 07:53:08 +0000

I think these are appropriate tools for children, when they have the maturity to use them. I RARELY use cash, so my children are going to grow up seeing me use my debit card for all transactions. Cards like these will help kids understand how our debit cards work, and are an opener to real lines of credit. Pre-paid spending cards have been around for years, it’s just now that the credit companies are picking up on them and marketing them for kids.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:21:41 +0000

I LOVE Michelle Singletary (the Post writer). I think she should be required reading. Still, I don’t think the card is a horrible idea. In reading about both cards, they are just gift cards with the VISA or MasterCard logo. They actually give parents more control over and insight into their child’s spending than cash does. It is a low risk way of learning to manage balances.

By: Rose

Rose — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:11:01 +0000

Credit cards for kids? You’re joking. Hides this article from my daughter.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:11:56 +0000

Nope, I don’t see this in my family.

By: Busy Mom

Busy Mom — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:08:31 +0000

Visa has a gift card that is an actual Visa looking card. Perhaps that’s what the child got?

Busy Girl has a savings account, but, she does not spend money from it. Any paycheck or money gift she gets, part of it goes into that account.

She is very good with her money, but, I can see an advantage in having that type of account so she can see where she spends, and, I think that visual accounting might be helpful to her. Checks are just too much of a PITA to write anymore.

It can be a teaching tool for a weekly allowance and might not end up in the cushions of the couch courtesy of your younger brothers, either.

I like the suggestion of that article to use a register, but, as for the concept of “free money”, I don’t think it’s any different than the risk of using checks.

By: AdventureDad

AdventureDad — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:40:29 +0000

Great, not only does my wife love to use the platinum card but soon my toddlers will do as well. i believe in teaching my kids early on about managing ehir own money and that involves saving, weekly allowance, and NO credit cards. When they are older, fine. But before then, what’s the point? Impress friends?

Nice weekend

By: Mitch McDad

Mitch McDad — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:38:18 +0000

Thanks for scaring thr crap out of me. Now all I can think of is my wife and 2 girls going on individual shopping sprees. Kill me.

By: djuggler

djuggler — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 02:39:40 +0000

And like you mentioned, since a credit card is “proof of legal age” then they have a key to all kinds of websites that they shouldn’t be looking at. Of course, I can only imagine the looks on the parents faces of the abashed child that tries to explain “my card is empty because I didn’t understand that $4.95 per minute would go so fast!”

All that aside, let’s not forget that monopoly is doing away with cash and replacing it with a debit card as have our school cafeterias. It’s not far into the future that cash will become passe and something merely for collectors.