No Credit Card Shopping for Teens

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Bill My Parents allows you to shop online without a credit card

Bill My Parents is a program that offers prepaid Mastercard credit cards for teenagers, along with a parental notification system monitoring their use. The program allows teens the ease of shopping with credits cards, including online shopping, without the worry of incurring large debts, and with a higher level of parental control. The cards can only be ordered with the parent's permission and are loaded by the parents themselves, who can control how much money is available at any time. All transactions are immediately recorded and sent to both the parents and the teens via text message. Since the cards are prepaid, there is no risk of overdraft or late charges. When the balance is low, the cards can be reloaded at the parent's discretion, for whatever amount they choose. Parents can also set up an automatic reload system, which would work the same way as a weekly or monthly allowance, without the need for cash.

Teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 are eligible for the cards, which come in a variety of designs. The minimum load that can be placed on a card is $20, and the maximum amount any one parent or family member can place on the card is $500 per day. More than one family member can load the card, however, up to a total maximum of $2,500 per day. Funds can be loaded either via check or approved bank withdrawal, or via credit card. Loading the card can take up to five days to process, but there is an emergency option available via credit card in which funds are made available within an hour.

The cards can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted, including online and internationally. Because of age restrictions, however, the cards can not be used to purchase alcohol, tobacco, firearms, ammunition, or for gambling or adult entertainment. Bill My Parents also offers a blog on their site giving tips for managing credit cards and finances for teens.

There is no start-up fee. The monthly fee for use of the card is $3.95. There is also a $.75 loading fee each time you add money to the card.

When the Bill My Parents program was first introduced, in addition to prepaid credit cards the company offered online shopping at specific sites without a credit or debit card. Sites such as Amazon.com and PacSun.com had specific shopping areas where each item, along with the normal payment options, also had a Bill My Parents button. When this was clicked, the site would send a message to the parents, requesting permission to charge a pre-registered credit card for the purchase. Once approval was sent, the purchase would go through in the normal fashion. This program was apparently discontinued sometime in the last six months (there is no information about the program available on their site), and now Bill My Parents offers only prepaid Mastercards.