Putting an end to the $37.00 Cup of Coffee
August 20, 2012
Matthew King
Consider for a moment the $37.00 cup of coffee. Never heard of such a thing? Every year MILLIONS of Americans pay $37.00 for a cup of coffee – more if they are prone to ordering those “double half-caf mocha frappe-chinos” at the local coffee house (you know who you are!) Back to the $37.00 cup of coffee. It goes like this; Wednesday evening you pay a bill or two. It’s late on payday week and money is kind of tight. Friday morning it’s all supposed to be ok as you get paid today.
You stop at the caffeine supply shop and spend $1.89 on coffee, which you put on your bank ATM card. No problem… you get paid today. Lunchtime comes and the checks haven’t arrived yet. You get your paycheck after lunch. Sometime later your boss gives you a new task that must be completed today. You get off work late and the bank is closed so you decide to go in the morning. The next morning, you go online to check your bank account and there, looming over your account like a girlfriend’s angry father is the overdrawn balance of your bank account. That one check cleared fast. The coffee was then purchased on an overdrawn account. You got a $35.00 overdraft fee; and a $37.00 cup of coffee ($36.89 to be exact but at this kind of inflation… who’s counting?) This scenario plays out everyday to workers all across America. You didn’t think banks survived on that $10.00 monthly service fee did you?
The $37.00 cup of coffee and a variety of other consumer banking ills were the driving force behind the growing popularity of today’s “Stored Value Cards” (SVC’s). SVCs have a variety of names you may be familiar with: Prepaid Reloadable card, Payroll card and Cash card to name a few. Originally created to serve people with no access to banking services or bank accounts, SVCs were meant to provide alternative banking services that replaced or better, enhanced, conventional banking services. Premium Stored Value Cards, like the Treo Payroll Card or the Treo Prepaid Visa not only allow cardholders to enjoy Direct Deposit services (gaining access to your paycheck immediately the morning of payday) but also offer a host of other enhancements: online bill pay, 24/7/365 cardholder support and user defined text message alerts to keep an eye on your account at all times. Cardholder funds are still held in FDIC insured banks with Federal regulators watching over the accounts to insure they are safe and that the cardholder’s best interests are protected. MasterCard and Visa both offer cardholder protection against loss or theft. Since there are no longer any checks involved you can’t overdraft a Stored Value Card. All in all, the card product that was invented for people with no bank account or banking relationship actually ends up being a better alternative for people with bank accounts… and $37.00 cups of coffee.
To learn more about better alternative banking solutions, visit http://www.treocard.com or http://www.treoflag.com.
Ready to order your FREE personalized Treo Card?
If you are a subcontractor and receive 1099’s from your work sources, go to: www.treocard.com/lpflag
If you are an employee and would like a Treo Payroll Card, go to: www.treocard.com/lppayroll
