UPDATE: Some readers are already reporting bad experiences with this one–see the comments below!
US Bank has a new prepaid product called the Contour. I noticed this one last week, but didn’t see anything worthwhile about it until reader DM pointed out the card’s fee schedule to Matt and me: 
Very interesting! If you go to the FAQ page, it says:
Are there other ways to add money to my card?
In addition to Direct Deposit, there are several ways to add money to your card:
- Visit any U.S. Bank branch to add cash to your card.
- Save up to 2 funding accounts online at www.usbankcontour.com to add money to your card:
- One U.S. Bank checking or savings account can be saved – adding money from this account type are free, but will take 3-5 days to become available in your Contour account.
- Up to 2 credit or debit cards can be saved – fees to add money do apply, but funds are available immediately on your Contour account.
That, too, is interesting! Let’s see if there’s anything interesting on the cardholder agreement:
So the maximum balance at one time is $10,000, the maximum amount you can load at once or per day is $5,000, and there’s no word on how much you can load per month. All of these are very good things if you’re looking to score some credit card points.
The bad news: it’s $4 to get the card and then $4 per month to keep it, and they’ll keep charging you fees even if you have a $0 balance.
I’m on the fence with this one, but only because my wife is nine months pregnant and due any day now and we’re preparing for the storm… but I’m still thinking about it. Anybody with any thoughts or info about the Contour, please post below.
I’ve heard people already being shutdown and/or accounts frozen. Doesnt look like a viable prodcut. More like what Netspend and MVD starting doing
As I understand your post:
$2.50 to load $5000/mth/2x mth = $60. $4/mth fee x 12= $48. $4.00 one time charge for card.
Total 1st year charges= $112.00.
MS= 60000.
Big question: what can the card be used for. If it can be used to pay credit card balances (like the AmEx Bluebird) it would seem to be a great opportunity to add cheap points into your preferred reward program(s).
Yes I have one thought about this: It’s US Bank.
Next!!!!
That’s terrible news! Be careful with this one, folks.
It could have been good until it knows youre loading it a lot with a rewards type cc and cashing out quickly for thousands on end.
It will shut you at tenk aye
It could have been good til it hit FT and all the blogs.
It may hold your funds and make you FDIC them.
It could have been good but its US Bank so nahhh.
It will die before it gets going
It is a terrible product by a terrible company. I loaded $5K on the card, used it several times at grocery stores and got shut down. They refuse to discuss why and simply tell me that they will send me a check with the balance.
It is not worth anybody’s time.
Loaded $5K. Bought MO at WM for $3K. Shutdown next day.
WARNING everyone to stay away from us bank prepaid cards. The headache of carrying this card is beyond belief. If you ever purchase something and return it us bank prepaid will freeze your account. Then you have to fax over your receipt, plus no other deposit can come through for day which you then have to call them back to reactivate. Then if you ever purchasing anything online most times it wont go through. I can go on and on and on please say away and find another prepaid card.
I have had the card for 6 months now and actually love it so far. The one only issue I have is I went to Reno for a week and stayed at a Hotel and they put a 21 day hold on my card for the Hotel charge plus I paid for the Hotel room when I checked out so basically you are charged twice when you stay at Hotels because you will have the pending charges of the rate for 21days. This is common though with most debit cards. I am disputing a few charges and it has been 2 weeks since dispute was submitted and I have heard nothing as of today so ill maybe in a few months my opinion may be different if I hear nothing on the dispute but so far I have no real complaints. Much better than a Netspend card and you can load money for free at any US Bank and withdraw for free at any US Bank Atm
Not happy with this card at all. I am on check systems so I don’t have much choice with banking, although I wish I would have done more research before getting the contour. It took them 2 months to send me a new card after I reported my old one as lost. During that 2 months the idiots that work with contour would not allow me any access to any of my funds. You cannot transfer money. Period. When you return an item bought they freeze your acct. All around not a good choice in my opinion. Not worth the $4 a month
I got our cont cards many months ago and they made mistakes too but i was able to load w many ccs many times to the tune of like $100k in several months before they one day shut everything and held my funds for two weeks. I had $17k in four cards and had to fax stuff in but that failed so they let me email.
That week a ton of people i know suffered the same fate and we started hearing the contour wouldnt take cc loads anymore anyway.
So what are people doing with it anyway?
My sons card was frozen and we had to fax them his SS card and ID to get the freeze lifted. Now we wait a week for this to unfreeze. They wouldn’t even talk to the US Bank employees that signed us up in their place of business. DO NOT GET A CONTOUR CARD.
Hello I was finally able to open a regular checking account with first merit bank. It turns out that they don’t do chexsystem. This bank is in ohio and I think they serve a few more states. What a relief.
Don’t do it. The USBankContourCard is useless. Horrible customer service, monthly fees, takes 3-5 days for money to load (if not longer) etc There are much better cards out there!
I say do contour… That is, if you want a shite company to hold your $17k in funds for two weeks and make you fax (not email) in pages of your life history to try and get it back
stay away, I can not stress this enough, not only is customer service terrible and the rude beyond words. I had a couple returns and they froze my account not giving me any access to my account. I had to miss work because I could not get gas. They said they need the original receipt to clear up block. I asked to speakk to maanager over five times and told that there is no manager there every time. I dont think they even have a manager. So instead I said I will go back to the store that I got the refund and have them change method of refund and the girl said well they cant get there money back. So that sounds like theft to me, this bank takes your money holds it then when the company that refunded tries to get it back they refuse. So what is really going on, I will never bank with us bank after this and contour is a scam. They wanted to block my account over something I have never heard of as being an issue.
I love the contour card. It’s works perfectly. I can load at any us bank branch. The money is there instantly. I issued subcard for my nephew. He has money in seconds. Easy way to give an allowance. Subcard is free! I think the $4 monthly fee is reasonable. Now I have NOT made any returns, so no experience with a frozen acct. For me I recommend this card!
WARNING WARNING WARNING Do not get this card for a college student. Was asured my grandson could use it anywhere they take Visa. I loaded money on it for his book and other items he would need the first week of school. Bought the card on a Thursday before he left and first time he tired to use it on Monday they had froze the account. Customer Service is NO HELP and the account is frozen till we send in copies of driver lic., ss card and then it will take up to a week to get our money. Once it is unfrozen my money is out of there and they can have their card back. DO NOT GET THIS CARD.
I just purchased this card from a US Bank branch in the Mission Hills neighborhood of San Diego. When I walked in I asked the branch manager that I’d like to purchase a Contour Card. He was a little snippy and said “just go to any teller” .. I pretty much new what I was in for based on that response but I purchased one anyway from a teller who was reasonably pleasant and knew what she was doing. One of my biggest concerns was the ability for a friend to occasionally load my card for me (he lives 500 miles away). I felt I really did my homework before I purchased it and asked three different customer service reps and the teller if this indeed would be possible. All of them said it would be no problem at any US Bank Branch as long as he had my card# and my name. When he ultimately tried to load the card at two separate branches in Sacramento he got the runaround. It appears that no one at the two branches really knew what he was talking about when he mentioned the Contour Card. Finally he was told no .. that he couldn’t load another person’s card. He went to another branch .. once again the tellers were idiots. One teller finally called a manager at another branch and he provided her instructions on how to load the card. Meanwhile I was on the phone with CS and they were all saying that employees at the branch were totally uninformed. Really??? I called the branch manager at the first location the following day and of course she apologized profusely thanking me and letting me know this would be a “training opportunity” for her staff. Since I managed retail stores for ten years I know this is code for “I really don’t give a crap”. On the second day he went to another branch in Elk Grove, CA and these tellers were right on top of it. He provided my card# and they immediately loaded it .. no questions asked. So kudos to them! With the exception of the aforementioned, the experience has been pretty miserable with this card and its only been a week. It appears that the correct procedure (which is really very simple) is not being taught properly to the employees. Everyone is on a different page and no one knows what the hell they are doing. And based on what I’ve been reading here.. freezing your account for various reasons… it just sounds like a miserable and not a very secure option for your money.
Did you open the card online or did you go to the branch and purchased one. I went to the branch and they took my drivers license # and so forth. I think more banks are ultimately asking for identity verification when you open accounts online (even bank accounts) to counter money-laundering/identity theft. I opened a Wells Fargo account a few years ago and like a week after the account was up and running I received a call from their fraud unit requesting that I visit a branch to provide them with my ID..etc.. But for US Bank to just freeze your account is horrifying. I would have filed a complaint with the FTC.
This was truely one of the best prepaid cards when it first came out, since then many people have abused it and it has turned to crap. What other prepaid card has a daily spending/ATM withdrawl limit of $1000? They now will only take U.S. Bank issued credit and debit cards for instant deposit, before they would take virtually any Visa or Mastercard. And yes the account freezing gets old after awhile I can use the card online to send an $800 western union and they won’t bat an eye but as soon as I get a $5 refund from USPS for a shipping label I didn’t use, my account is frozen. Usually it just takes a quick 5 minute call to customer service to unfreeze it but its still a pain.
This is the worst card vice ever. I have been without access to money for more than a week. Everytime i call, they lie to me about. What day i should get it. They are trying to charge me for sending another contour after not receiving my replacement for longer than a week. I have been waiting and for them to respond to me like its only a prepaid and no concern about me having access to my money. Shocks me on how USBank allow this. Ill either have to wait another week or pay $15 dollars to send it express 2 tp 3 days.
I’ve been having a problem receiving a card. It has been three months, and my card has never made it to me. On several occasions they said they sent it out. On two additional occasions, they billed me $15 to express mail it to me. Never did receive it. Each time I speak to a rep. or a manager I get a different story. Now, I am hearing that the card was never sent out even though they billed me $15 for express delivery. I have a US Bank account, and I’ve never had problems with them . . . but this Contour Card I believe won’t be anything but TROUBLE!
Any positive comments regarding this POS must be made by people employed by Contour or people who never have to actually add money to the card.
I CANNOT wait to cancel this money sucking card. $2.50 anytime you add money, then $4/month “Maintanance fee” is bad enough, but then I have had to contact the bank IN PERSON every time I’ve wanted to add money to the card because the website fails to add money (from a verified account), then shuts down the card because I attempted to add money via their failed system for making too many attempts to add money. (I tried once, the second attempt I got the “your card is no longer valid for this program because of too many attempts to add money”)
The same thing has happened to my wife.
Of Course, the 855 number you can call is worthless..they can not unfreeze the card, cannot say why the card was frozen…the best they can do is give you and email to complain.
Oh…and use it to purchase gas at a gas station and you will have an instant $100 hold placed.
on your card.
Once you get fed up with the lousy service and want to to close the account, they will not close it and refund the money left. It has to have a zero balance…which means I have to run a split transaction to zero the card, then call them back and wait on hold. Not a big deal, but just adds further inconvenience to this already inconvenient card.
It’s much easier to buy a Visa prepaid card at any large retailer and be done with it.
I’ve actually had this card, with 3 sub accounts, for some time now. Funny, but I haven’t experienced a single problem loading or using this card or any of the sub accounts.
But then, maybe it’s because I’m not trying to run up travel miles on a “rewards” CC by transferring money to myself.
It’s totally worked for me … till now, that is. ive been notified that it will be discontinued in September, 2016. I take care of a younger sibling and it allowed me to get money to him when he needed it. But as others have said it took 4-5 days (sometimes longer) to transfer money from his checking account to the card. That is really my only complaint. We did have 2 bogus purchases on the card. But they covered it and got a new card out right away. I’m scrambling to replace it with something else.
Exactly. When used as intended, a great tool.