Card Keeps Teen Chargers in Check at the Mall
Like a lot of teenagers, my kids love to go to the mall with their friends, and the last thing they need is their parents tagging along. Naturally, they want money to spend once they get there.
Most kids don’t have credit cards, and frankly, I’m not keen about mine carrying around more than a few dollars in cash.
But a solution has finally arrived. Last weekend, I sent Katherine and William off to the mall, with their own Visa cards, but not ordinary Visas. It was a PocketCard Visa (https://www.pocketcard.com) designed to enable teens to spend their own or specified other people’s money.
The card works just like any Visa credit or debit card, but instead of running up a bill like a credit card or taking money out of a bank account like a debit card, the PocketCard Visa draws money from an account that Mom, Dad or another “sponsor” funds from the company’s Web site.
When you want to give the kid more money to spend, you go to the site and transfer money from your checking account to their PocketCard. You can transfer as little as $10 or as much as $250 at a time. The kids’ spending limit is based on how much money is left in their account. If there’s no money to spend, the card will be declined.
It takes about 20 minutes at the PocketCard Web site to open an account for one or more kids. You’ll need to provide checking account information, your Social Security number and the Social Security number, age, address and other basic information of each person who gets a card. The card itself arrives in the mail in a week or two.
It costs $15 a year to maintain an account with one spender plus $2.50 for each additional spender. You pay 25 cents every time you load money into the account and an additional 25 cents each time the card is used. You can specify whether the card may be used at ATM machines to get cash.
But watch out there. You’ll pay $2 per automatic teller transaction in addition to whatever charges are levied by the company that owns the machine the child is using. Because it’s not a credit card, you’ll never pay interest charges or late fees.
When the card arrives, you go back to the Web site to activate it and “load” the card with whatever amount of money you want your kid to be able to spend. It takes only a few seconds to reload the card from the Web site.
Funds are available immediately. So, if Katherine finds something at Nordstrom that she’s just “gotta have” but doesn’t have enough money in her account to cover it, my wife or I have the option of adding funds that she can use right away. (Of course, we also have the choice to not add funds. Despite what your kids may claim, refusing to allow a teenager to buy the latest designer T-shirt does not constitute child neglect.)
When you register for the card, you can specify an e-mail address where you’ll be notified--almost immediately--when the card is used. When Katherine used the card Sunday, I knew right away where she had shopped and how much she spent, though I didn’t know what she bought.
For those rare moments when you’re away from your computer, you can add money from a touch-tone phone by punching in the child’s account number and a secret personal identification number.
Well, theoretically you can.
My son tried to use his card to buy two shirts for $30.31, but it was declined because he only had $30 in his account. I tried to add money to his account via phone, but for some reason it wouldn’t accept my PIN, and unfortunately the company’s customer service department is available only Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Central Standard Time. If PocketCard wants to be a big player in the consumer financial arena, they’ll need to improve on those hours.
The card can be used on the Internet as well as in retail stores. One thing that concerns me is that a credit card is considered an adult ID check for most adult Web sites. As a test, I used William’s card to enroll in the Playboy Cyber Club.
The site accepted his card and membership without a hitch, and, as the parent, I got an e-mail verifying that he spent $6.98 at “PB *PEI ONLINE”--hardly a clear label, so beware. And since some adult sites don’t actually charge your card but simply use it to verify that you’re an adult, the potential for your kids gaining access to off-limits sites is greatly enhanced. (In case you’re wondering, I canceled Will’s Playboy account immediately, so he never got to use it.)
PocketCard President William C. Scheurer said his company plans to work with Visa and MasterCard to determine the possibility of stopping the practice of using credit cards for adult ID checks.
The Children’s Online Protection Act, passed by Congress but currently under legal challenge, specifies that a credit card can be used for such checks.
The PocketCard isn’t just for families and teenagers. The company also sells to businesses to give to employees or contractors. Unlike a company credit card, it enables the firm to limit how much an employee can spend simply by limiting the funds in his or her account. Also, individuals could issue a PocketCard to a repair person, for instance, to buy supplies or a baby-sitter to buy the kids pizza or pay for groceries. It’s also an easy way to get money to college students away from home or family members who are traveling abroad.
If you just want your kids to be able to spend money online, consider an account on ICanBuy.com (https://www.icanbuy.com) or RocketCash (https://www.rocketcash.com), which would give your connected offspring the ability to make purchases without a credit card at participating merchants or even donate to charity.
ICanBuy also has an “allowance” feature that lets you add money at regular intervals.
*
Lawrence J. Magid can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web site is at https://www.larrysworld.com.
