I have had this account for 1 year now and it's caused me, my family and partner nothing but grief each month since opening. I hold my hands up that due to my situation pre paid account was my only way of banking and I was desperate so I chose this company first. First of all having to pay the initial £12.50 to access the account is ridiculous. The charges to use the account £12.50 each month, £15/£7.50 for every bank transfer going out that day & cash withdrawal £1.50 every time a cash withdrawal is needed at any ATM machine. It's day light robbery but these are the terms. The last charge is 11p per call to the company and believe me after the amount of calls you have to make to this company because of there incompetence your paying out hundreds of £ of your hard earn money each month. Money being paid in has to be in before 15:30 mon-fri, anything after this time will not clear till the next working day so if you've missed the Friday cut off then it's a long wait to pay your bills/rent as they're not open on a weekend or bank holidays. Even then friends family have sent me faster payments before this cut of time this company makes up a lie of saying the payment may have taken more then two hours to be received from the sender so it's missed the cut off. An absolute farce. Once the money has cleared it will go in to your payment account, you'll then need to load your card account with these funds online or by an expensive phone call. It will then state after 45 mins past the hour it will take up to 1 hour to be received to your card account. This can actually take up to 3 hours so if you're in a rush to need money then have fun sat waiting and worrying for access to your own money. Moving on to my main issue which is paying out your own money to family members or whoever needs to be paid that day or week. Frustration after frustration which has now concluded with me pulling the plug with this account. Direct debits, most companies will not allow to take there monthly bill off a direct debit via your account. The card does not allow direct debits to be set up, each month you'll have to pay online or call each company up when making a payment. Not a massive problem but when abroad it again costs you more money. A payment for the same day needs to be set up and sent by 16:30. This will then take one hour to be processed and takes around two hours for the recipient to receive these funds. This can vary to £15 / £7.50 per payment. Miss the cut of time your family or friend are waiting another day to receive there funds. Now the payment sector is the one that has caused me nothing but grief. A monthly standing order has worked for me 9/10 however when initially setting up you need to give 5 days notice each month for the funds to be released. For example I'm setting the payment up for the 30th, they will take the funds out on 25th, if you're paid late then the standing order will fail. Always make sure it's set up 5 days or more after being paid!!!. Paying my family or friends off the same day payment is the sole destroyer of my experience. I have lost count now how many times a payment is set up to the correct details and I've paid the charge fee and yet the recipient hasn't received any payment. Day after day they check there accounts and nothing is received. I make the 11p per minute call to ask/question what the hell is going on. The call service is poor and the telephone manner and attitude of these people is disgusting. They give you no hope that the matter is being looked in to. The response is we will investigate this for you and pass it on to our manager. The manager seems to be an actual ghost as each call made they seem to be busy or not looked in to the situation yet. By then your phone bill is rising and rising. Eventually you hear the same response as you've heard before it's resolved now and the recipient will receive it by tomorrow. Tomorrow arrives and guess what? The money is still not received. Right now again I'm going through the same situation and I'm about to pull the plug and request for the funds back so I can just withdraw MY MONEY.. let's see how quick they can pay my money to the recipient after all it was sent one week ago! This company has to be one of the worst companies I've ever had to bank with. There's no positives other then you have a bank to recievce your wages. I would recommend to stay away from this company and seek help from other pre paid accounts if you're in the same situation as me. I'm currently making a official complaint and after the 8 week period this will be taken to the financial ombudsman who've been contacted regarding this matter. This is just an overview of certain things.