Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning.
I have a new grand baby and her birthday was coming up in about a week.
Since she and her mother don't live in the same city I have to Priority Mail the present to her.
I found the cutest little snow suit for her on sale (baby clothes cost also as much as my clothes!).
So after calling her mom (my daughter) to verify that I have the right size, I take the snow suit to the register and make the purchase.
The snow suit costs $32.
75 reduced from $44.
95 (!#@?).
I have a VISA Gift card that I pre-loaded with $150.
So I use that to make the purchase.
Then I see a 1 TB External Drive on sale for $74! So I go in to the store to make the purchase and when I get to the register, the clerk tells me that my VISA Card is declined! What the hell!? I know the money was there and the only thing I had bought was the snow suit, in fact, that was the very first purchase on the card.
So I go to a friend's place nearby and use their computer to lookup my account and find that in a short period of time several other charges were made on the card! Come to find out that the sales associate has what you call an photographic memory and memorized my card number, called his partner in crime and made some internet charges on my card.
After reporting this to VISA, I later found out that this had been going on for almost a year! Just think of what could have happened if that had been my main VISA card attached to my bank account! That could have wiped me out! After that experience I opened up what I call my Monthly Bills Account (for lack of a better, cooler term) that contains only enough money to pay that month's bill.
You may have to find a bank that will give you a checking account attached to your debit card WITHOUT OVERDRAFT! Make sure you ask the bank manager because if the account executive tells you that you don't have overdraft and you find out that you do, the manager normally spanks the hand of that person just to satisfy you for the moment but they end up suffering no penalty because they just made the bank more money in late charges.
The point to this story is that if you are making purchases at stores or on the internet, and especially now-a-days with all of the Identity thief and major outlets (OfficeMax for one), Veteran's Administration and other's losing our Credit Card data, Debit Gift cards limit your losses and they are very helpful following through to make sure that any fraud is resolved.
One last thing is that I don't trust the refillable cards that come from the bank.
Honestly, I have never used one but, just like I would like to turn off Overdraft, If I don't have the money, don't approve the purchase on my debit.
But the banks wouldn't make the overdraft charges if they did that.