How to avoid fees on your Insight Prepaid Visa Card

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Insight is a prepaid visa card that allows you to use it as an ordinary debit card. It comes with a FDIC-insured savings account from Republic Bank of Chicago, up to a maximum balance of $5,000 (earned interest is allowed past the limit). The sole reason to open this prepaid card is for the 5% APY on the savings account, which is compounded daily and paid quarterly. What you'll have to do is load the prepaid card via direct deposit (I'd use Popmoney ideally to avoid dealing with verification deposits) then transfer the money from the card to the savings account. When you need to withdraw a balance, you'll have to move the money from the savings account back to the card and do an ACH pull.

Now, since this product targets the under-banked, it is hefty with fees that nickel and dime you for practically everything you might want to do with a debit card. Be sure to read their terms and conditions. As a summary, to avoid all their fees, restrict your activities to the following

  • Choose the Pay As You Go option when signing up to avoid a monthly fee
  • Perform balance inquiries from your online account, toll-fee automated phone service, or automated text or e-mail aerts
  • Perform online bill payments
  • Make a deposit or withdrawal at least once every 90 days to avoid an inactivity fee
In other words, use it solely as a savings account to park your money at. The great thing about this is that the customer service representative informed me that you can legitimately have up to 4 cards per SSN so that you can earn the interest rate on $20,000.


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