FU: Debit card for 14 year old?

[bazookaman]

So we just checked with our CU. What a pain. Firstly, she's not allowed to have a debit card. We would have to create an entirely new account (we already have several). But it would be in OUR name. She cannot have any kind of card at all. We can get a card for the new account but it would be in my wife's name. Which I think is just stupid. So we'll probably go with something like Greenlight...for now anyway. Until she can get a real actual account.

[Robert M]

Bazooka,

No surprise. You'll come across the same problem at other financial institutions. That's why a reloadable credit card is your best bet.

Robert

[graylocks]

Look into USAA. Clark Howard recommends them often.

I have a checking account with USAA although I'm not military affiliated so perhaps you can establish a parent account and then kid account without military credentials. Link your primary bank account to your USAA for easy transfers. One thing I have found unusual about USAA is that when you make a transfer from another bank the funds are available IMMEDIATELY. Don't have any other bank that does that.

USAA KIDS AND TEEN CHECKING

[Speedy]

I’m the representative payee for Social Security for my daughter. She uses a debit card that has my name on it and has had it for about ten years. She has only had its use rejected by a vendor once. It works well because I can monitor her usage online.

[Robert M]

Bazooka,

In case you are interested in becoming a member of USAA:





Robert

[bazookaman]

We decided to try out Gohenry. We'll see how it works. She gets a card. They have an app to control things. We load it up as needed, etc.

[RAMd®d]

So we just checked with our CU. What a pain. Firstly, she's not allowed to have a debit card. We would have to create an entirely new account (we already have several). But it would be in OUR name. She cannot have any kind of card at all.


Given your use case described previously, why wouldn't another card in your name, or a new account in your wife's name suffice?

Having a card in her name would certainly be a step in showing you trust her judgement, but it's not all that surprising that institutions don't share that trust.

Does she run into situations where she can't swipe the card herself?

In the 'old days' when the card was handed over, one often had to show ID.

That stopped long ago, at least in my experience, even before the advent of DIY POS terminals.

In the last several years, other than a restaurant, I haven't seen a vendor that didn't have a DIY terminal, especially now with contactless paying.

Gohenry sounds like a solution.

Is the card she gets in her name?

I would have been beaming as a 14-year-old with a card with my name on it.

But that might not have been a good idea, LOL.

[NewtonMP2100]

....debiTT......???

[mikebw]

bazookaman wrote:
So we just checked with our CU. What a pain. Firstly, she's not allowed to have a debit card. We would have to create an entirely new account (we already have several). But it would be in OUR name. She cannot have any kind of card at all. We can get a card for the new account but it would be in my wife's name. Which I think is just stupid. So we'll probably go with something like Greenlight...for now anyway. Until she can get a real actual account.

My Mom ran into the same thing when trying to get my sister and I our own cards for our own already existing accounts. She said "OK then I will be closing all our accounts". We had our cards later that week. /whipcrack