Suze Orman's Pre-Paid Debit Card Labeled "Cream Of The Crap"

Yesterday, we told you about personal finance personality Suze Orman’s decision to get behind a pre-paid debit card that she hoped would be of help to consumers who either couldn’t get a line of credit or wanted to avoid using credit cards. But now that people have had a chance to look at the specifics on Suze’s card, the reaction from some is a bit of a shrug.

Speaking to FOX Business’ Gerri Willis yesterday, SmartCredit.com’s John Ulzheimer said that while the fees associated with Suze Orman’s Approved card are in line with those you see from the most consumer-friendly existing cards, he said it’s really a situation of being “the best of a bad category or… the cream of the crap.”

In addition to the automatic $3/month fee, which Orman says she had originally hoped to do without, there are also other fees like $2 per paper statement, $2 per live agent customer service call, among others.

“At the end of the day, it’s still $36 a year to have access to your own money,” added Ulzheimer. “I can go to a credit union tomorrow, stick five dollars in an account, open an account, get a debit card and it’s going to cost me the grand total of nothing.”

Both he and Willis likened fees for pre-paid debit cards to the scrapped Bank of America debit card fee.

Speaking of which, you may remember Willis as the one who cut up her Bank of America card on the air during the height of the fee furor.

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