Yet another alternative for rebuilding your credit rating is the AccountNow® Prepaid Visa®. This card is offered by MetaBank and deposits are FDIC insured up to the federal limit. Technically, this is not a credit card since it is prepaid. However, it does have the Visa brand on it and can be used anywhere Visa Debit is accepted. Why would you use this instead of cash?

Good question. The best answer is to improve your credit rating. MetaBank reports your payment history to all three of the credit bureaus monthly when you have one of these cards. Rebuilding your credit rating takes time but having a monthly record of your good payment history will improve your chances of succeeding. They will report your transactions as far as online bill paying goes and any action associated with borrowing money. One of the benefits of having a prepaid card is that you will not be paying any late fees on your credit cards since the money has to be on the card before you spend it.

The AccountNow® Prepaid Visa® makes it fairly easy to add money to your card. The company highly recommends direct deposits from your employer. They even give you a $25 bonus if you sign up for direct deposit of at least $100 that recurs at least twice within 35 days. You actually need to keep it up for a bit longer than that to receive your bonus since it is paid 65 days after your first deposit and your direct deposit order still has to be active at that time. With that little caveat, it is a nice bonus for your direct deposit.

You can also add money via Paypal, a checking or savings account or any of over 100,000 locations offering MoneyGram, Western Union, Green Dot Money Pak or Visa ReadyLink. When using most of these options, your money will be available immediately.

If you don’t have a checking account, the AccountNow® Prepaid Visa® is a possible alternative. With direct deposit you will be able to access your money easily and since they offer online bill paying free of charge, you have the main functions of a checking account available to you. This card does charge a monthly fee which currently is $9.95 once you load money onto your card. If you are currently cashing your checks at stores or banks that charge a fee for this service, you may save enough in check cashing fees to make this card a worthwhile savings tool.

MetaBank does not do a credit check before issuing this card so it is a good tool if you have ruined your credit history and would not get approved for a credit card otherwise. They have 100% guaranteed approval. The minimum age for obtaining one of these cards is 14 years. This may be a reasonable alternative to cash if your child is headed off on a lengthy trip and you don’t want them to travel with a lot of money but want there to be an emergency backup system. You could even have the child apply for one of these cards and not even load any money onto it. Applying is free and if you don’t load any money onto the card, there is no monthly fee. So as an emergency backup, your child could travel with the card, and if you need to load money onto it, you could do it from your Paypal account.

AccountNow has an A rating from the Better Business Bureau. This does not mean they do not get complaints but it does mean that they resolve most of them. They have been listed with the Better Business Bureau since 2006.