O2 Money: mobile giant does credit cards

July 15, 2009 2:00 pm

Categories: Mobile Phones News Tags: money, O2

O2′s clearly not content with snarfing the the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. It’s just launched O2 Money, a new service of pre–paid credit cards that it says will help you manage your moolah better. Read on to find out how it reckons O2 Money will make you save those much–needed pennies.

O2 Money isn’t any old credit card. There are two different flavours – Cash Manager and Load and Go. Both are part of a tie–in with NatWest and Visa, letting you top up and spend on the move, without raking up epic levels of debt. Every time you lay out on a latte or snatch a sarnie, you’ll get a text to your O2 mobile telling you just how much you’ve spent.

The Cash Manager O2 Money card is being aimed squarely at those who need to “ring fence” their disposable income. That means you can cram it full with any money you’ve got left over after splashing out on rent and that defunct gym membership and spend until your penniless. Or not if you’re clever with cash.

Load and Go is all about the kids. If you’re 13 or up, you can fill it with up to £150 a month. Fortunately for financially fearful parents, you can’t overspend and there’s no interest involved either.

O2 Money is due to land in mid–August, exclusive to O2 mobile punters.

Out August | £Free | O2

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http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

Debit card style is definitely a good idea for teens/tweens, especially if they’re going on holiday without mum and dad for the first time. Don’t want them getting addicted to the plastic before puberty!
declan

does this mean you have to have an account with natwest only or is it possible to bank elsewhere?
O2 – Employee

^^ No you do not need a Natwest account, the pre paid card is merely set up in conjunction with Natwest.
Del

Please be careful with this card if you take one out!!! I requested a basic load-and-go card from O2, to make sure I didn’t end up overspending on my bank card. It was a costly mistake for me to make.

After having it only about 1 week (and having only used it only once), I first had it rejected by a PIN machine (and I had just put a LOT of my salary I had transferred still on it, so it wasn’t out of cash in the least), and then the ATM took it from me – all without warning or explanation. Seemingly, my account had been inexplicably cancelled without discussion or warning – and I’d only had the card about 10 days.

I called O2 from that day onwards consistantly, only to be told they couldn’t tell me why the account had been cancelled, and a letter had been sent to me. Said letter never came, nor did my explanation. This happend over TWO MONTHS AGO, and I have been fighting to get my money back from them ever since. They have been disasterously unhelpful on the phone about it, and have to date not returned my money to me.

I hope this is a one-off situation, but still I would urge caution, especially if this is young people’s money on the cards that these people are messing around with.

O2 Money: mobile giant does credit cards

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