In the digital world we live in, making online payments has become commonplace. But using your regular bank cards to renew monthly subscriptions may not always be the best option. PayPal and prepaid cards offer an alternative with some distinct advantages, so let’s get into it…
1. Fraud protection
When paying online, you are potentially putting your bank details at risk. The advantage of PayPal and prepaid cards is that they offer you more protection in this regard. A prepaid card only provides the funds that you load onto the card.
This means if a criminal gains access to your card details, they will have limited access to funds. In the case of PayPal, payments are usually made via an email address. Even if someone gains access to your PayPal account, no funds are actually stored there unless you haven’t withdrawn them to your bank account.
Therefore, you can protect yourself by only keeping funds you need or your prepaid card and withdrawing your PayPal funds. Of course, this is much better than for a cyber criminal to gain access to your bank account or credit card, which could give them access to all your funds.
2. Better budgeting
One of the problems with debit and credit cards is that they make spending money too easy. This is one of the arguments about using cash, that it makes spending more conscious. Using PayPal and prepaid cards isn’t the same as cash, but they do offer a good way to budget.
The key thing is you can transfer only the money you need for the transaction to your prepaid card. Whilst you could transfer more money, this extra step provides another deterrent to stop you from doing so. You can also use PayPal in this way if you get the PayPal prepaid card, and PayPal is better than a credit card because you can only spend the money in your bank account.
3. Stop rebilling processes
A major annoyance of buying online subscriptions is that they are usually set to auto-renew after the initial period. This may not be a significant issue if you’re a long-time subscriber, but it’s certainly not ideal if you are testing out a service.
It’s true that you can cancel before the rebill happens, but it’s easy to forget to do that or even not realise you agreed to it in the first place. Prepaid cards take away the hassle if you don’t keep a balance on the card, which means any attempt to charge it again will fail.
With PayPal, things are a little more complicated because rebilling is a thing. But the good news here is you can cancel it within your account, which will remove the ability for the merchant to charge you again. This is useful because it means you don’t need to worry about the cancellation process with the brand in question.
~
It may seem unnecessary to use PayPal or a prepaid card for online purchases. But these payment options really can be useful to keep your personal finances in check. Some of the advantages include fraud protection, better budgeting and putting a stop to rebilling.
They are also useful to ensure you are paying the right amount. For example, you can add the amount of funds needed for a transaction to your card, and it won’t be processed if the brand attempts to charge you more. It’s true that using your regular debit and credit cards is more convenient, but the extra benefits do make the hassle worth it.