Suze O’s Preposterous Prepaid Card

“This is exactly what I need to turn my finances around”-No one ever

(This post has been a long time coming.  I’ve had some unhealthy pent up feelings about “The Approved Card” for a while and it will be nice to get it off my chest finally.  Enjoy.)

I starting delving into the world of personal finance literature about 7 years ago.  Though not strictly a personal finance book, the first book I read was Beating the Street by Peter Lynch.  I did not understand a good portion of it at the time, but it was so intelligently written with so many new terms and concepts that I rushed to the library and started poring through the books in the personal finance section.

I ran into the usual suspects.  Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, and of course the lady from Florida with the million dollar smile, Suze Orman.  I’m sure almost everyone knows of or has seen Suze.  She has a bunch of books, has a popular TV show and does a lot of speeches and seminars.  She also has some products, one of which I will destroy shortly.  In all honesty, I read a couple of Suze’s (Suzie’s?) books, and they did have some value to me early in my personal finance journey.  I especially enjoyed The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke.  I read it when I was a student and it had some good common sense strategies.

But that’s where my love affair with Suze ends.  When I was watching an episode of her show, she had a little special (and scammy) segment where she talked about this product she was selling called “The Approved Card.”  I’m not against personal finance writers selling stuff by the way.  If you have a product that helps people, you might as well make money off of it.  But this product is not such a product.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a prepaid card being an awesome thing that can help people’s finances, but Suze was offering it so it couldn’t be all that bad right?  (Also, Lil Wayne and Kim Kardashian offered prepaid cards at one point.  Those are some big shoes to fill.)

Wrong.  It was terrible.  Here is the link for it so you can see how bad it is.  (Apparently a bunch of the links on the site aren’t working so maybe she wised up and stopped offering it.  I will bash it nonetheless.)  First off, I never understood the value of a prepaid card.  It is the same as cash, so why not just carry around the cash?  Or sign up for a checking account?  Maybe it’s for people whose credit is a mess and can’t get traditional checking accounts.  But they do have checking accounts for people with bad credit as well.

There are two main reasons I hate this card.  The first is fees.  There is a $3 fee to open the card.  There is a $3 monthly maintenance fee.  A $2 ATM withdrawal fee.  A $2 fee for talking to customer service (you graciously get one free call a month).  A $3 card replacement fee.  A $2 paper statement fee.  A $1 fee for writing a check.  A $20 fee to order check copies.  A $2 cash withdrawal fee.  There are other fees too, but listing them all will just make it seem like I’m trying to get my word count up.

How in the world does Suze Sunshine expect anyone (besides herself) to get ahead financially with a product laden with so many fees?  People get mad at big banks for hitting you with fees, but this is just ridiculous.  Just keeping this card open and not using it would cost you $36 a year.  $36 times thousands of rabid Suze followers equals a lot of money in Miss Orman’s account.  And I don’t think it will be her Approved Card account.

The second reason I hate this card?  The utter greed and arrogance shown by Suze.  This woman is supposed to be a personal finance author, an advocate for getting people’s financial lives in order.  Getting this card is a sure way to turn your finances into a bigger mess.  And she smiles all the way to the bank knowing that.  In the promo video on the card’s website, she says she has our “best interests at heart”.  After hearing that, all I could think of was the saying, “Beware the forked tongue behind white teeth.”

The top line on the Approved Card website is an insightful commentary by Suze: “I want you to get my Approved Card now!”  I think you’re the only one that wants that Suze.