GoBank by Green Dot - a new BlueBird competitor?

I am not about to defend them...but a lot of your concerns are in-fact, because they are in beta.

When they say that the beta testers are locked in at $0 - they are basically just saying that they default you to $0. Perhaps when it is out of beta, they will default people to $5.
This is like getting a "locked in" rate-quote. Can you call up your lender and ask them to raise your rate? Sure...but you would be silly to.
I don't know why they even give the option...like anyone would pay money when they have the option not to? This isn't some open source developer...I'm not about to donate some money to them...
They might have used the term "defaulted" instead....but I don't think you need to worry about your rate going up...you will always be able to pay $0 I believe.

The funding sources are in transition right now, so how you can fund it a little confusing...that is the biggest beta part.

As far as the money packs...they make a huge revenue. I don't know why they would want to give them to us for free when it would cut into their other business models.
First - once the other funding methods are put into place (see my post a few back) this won't really be a concern. Also, it is possible that they might have plans so that if you choose to pay, say $10 a month they will waive x number of moneypaks / month.

Just respect the beta...anything can change at this point.

FatWalletFan29 said:   I just got a Gobank invite and signed up today. I'm not that excited about it really and there are a few turnoffs so far:

There's a big thing plastered all over that "beta testers" - I thought meaning anyone who is using the site yet, since it's not open signup - have their fees "locked" at 0 dollars. When I signed up I saw a sliding dial that I could change from 0 to whatever their max was. I was a little bit shocked since this in no way is "locking" the fee. I emailed customer service to ask if I was in fact, a beta tester, and they said yes, as well as: "Beta testers have their Monthly Membership fee automatically set to $0. If you choose, you can increase or decrease this at any time. ". Does that sound like the definition of "locked" to you?? The only reason I really wanted to sign up at this very moment was to lock the fee in case they decide to tamper with it later.

I wasn't aware this was part of Green Dot until reading this thread. If this is the case, shouldn't they have a better deal with the MoneyPaks? Yes, you can add cash free of charge at a WalMart, which is a plus over every online bank I know of, but contrary to what's been said elsewhere, there aren't "Walmarts everywhere". I have to go quite out of my way to get to one, and a family member doesn't have one within a one mile drive. They will refund the moneypak fee on the initial deposit, but I'm just confused abut why they don't have a couple of those refunds per month, or discounted fees, if they are actually part of the same company! I think allowing a few moneypak refunds a month is more than reasonable and would get around the issue of inaccessible Walmarts.

Also a bit bummed that the initial deposit has to be a debit card. When I opened a Chase account, I think, I was able to use a Credit card and got a nice CB on my initial deposit. I think I read somewhere in this thread that they offered this before but apparently that option's gone.

Oh, and when writing customer service about all this, their "Contact Us" box is limited to 300 characters. Really? Especially in beta? Shouldn't you be encouraging your customers to share as much as possible? This gave me the feeling that they really don't want to hear what their customers have to say.

I don't know. Just have a bad feeling about this. They're trying to be all transparent and fee free, when there are actual fee free banks out there (Fidelity, Schwab refund atm fees, unlike this bank). I need a good account for traveling, fee wise, and this does NOT fit the bill. I'm not really sure what the appeal is. For me, I'm looking for an easier way to deposit cash into an online account (doesn't help too much on this one because of the WalMart proximity issue) and a way to receive money from outside bank accounts, the P2P transfers that some of the bigger banks have. I was told by the customer service rep that I could "receive money" if I just read the FAQ on "Send money" which of course, doesn't say anything about RECEIVING, because it's sending money.

Ugh.

FatWalletFan29 said:   Thanks, BenH. I've never worked with a beta banking product and it looks so polished that it's hard to remind myself that it is beta.
I'm guessing you haven't you tried the billpay... it got my payments there, but boy is the interface clunky.

Hehe, no, I'm still honestly deciding if I want to go through with it and thus stuck at the initial deposit screen, deciding which route to take. Which itself was bugging out and asking me to go through registration again once it timed out!

Honestly though I'm shocked by how clunky a lot of online banking interfaces feel, even if they do work. Feels like something from the late 90s! At least from the outside this one looks slick!

Can someone honestly tell me what the appeal is about this account other than using it to churn moneypaks, etc? It seems like all the threads online are about how to "abuse" the system. What's the appeal to the "real" customers? Note that I'm using quotes because I'm not in the least calling out anyone who uses the account like this, if anything some of the accounts of the bank coming up with new behind the scenes rules to combat use they don't want is sleazy.