Virtual Cards on the Rise
In recent times, we’re increasingly seeing use cases where virtual cards are a preferred method for making online transactions. This is especially useful in areas where traditional banking services may not be easily accessible. At Eversend, we understand the importance of having a virtual payment card for our users in Africa; it provides a convenient and secure way to engage in e-commerce, payments, and other financial transactions for both individuals and small businesses. With Eversend virtual Dollar card, the online world is at your fingertips, from shopping, subscription, flight booking to tuition and so much more.
However, just like traditional bank accounts, all virtual cards incur fees.
Associated Fees with the Eversend Virtual Dollar Card
- Card Maintenance Fee: This is a $1 recurring fee which we charge every month on all active virtual Dollar cards.
- Cross-border/FX Fee: This is a 3.5% fee that is charged when you make non-Dollar-denominated payments via your virtual Dollar card or the country of origin for the online payment you are making is not the United States. For instance, if you are making payments in a currency like EURO, GBP, as long as the stated amount is not in USD on the platform you’re paying on, you will be charged a cross-border/FX fee. Also, if the stated amount is in USD but the platform you’re paying on has its country of origin to be outside the USA, you’ll equally be charged the cross-border/FX fee. This FX fee is an unavoidable standard charge from financial networks directly mandated by card processors, including Visa and Mastercard.
- Insufficient-balance Fee: This is a $0.35 fee that is charged on every payment attempt carried out on your virtual Dollar card if the card balance is less than the amount you’re making payment for. This particular fee can be frustrating because, most times, customers add their virtual cards on online platforms that auto-charge for subscription renewals and other types of auto-payments, for instance, Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Apple. So, if the card balance is super low, when any of these platforms attempts to auto-charge the card, the auto-payment fails, consequently, the customer gets penalized for this by being charged $0.35. For clarification purposes, when a virtual card payment gets declined due to insufficient card balance, our virtual card processor (just like all other card processors) charges us for these failed payment attempts – everyone of them. Thus, this charge for declined transactions due to insufficient card balance is what we pass onto the user as a penalty fee in order for us to be able to cover the declined payment charges that we get from our card processor. Please note that we do not make any profit from this fee; matter-of-factly, we reduced the fee to $0.35 so that our customers can easily bear it.
In order to prevent insufficient-balance fee, here are 2 things we advise:
- Always keep your Eversend virtual Dollar card sufficiently funded: Make sure you always have enough funds on your virtual card to cover both one-time and recurring online payments that you use your virtual card for. Check your card balance regularly to ensure it adequately covers any of your intended spendings.
- Manage recurring services: Regularly review/audit the recurring subscription services linked to your Eversend virtual Dollar card. If there are services you no longer use or you have no plans to continue using, ensure to remove or unlink your virtual card details from those auto-renewing services/platforms; that way, you won’t be charged for services you no longer need.
Here are other penalties you may encounter regarding your Eversend virtual Dollar card:
- Your virtual card will be temporarily frozen after three (3) initiated transactions with insufficient funds.
- If there are up to five (5) instances of attempted insufficient-card-balance charges and the card still has insufficient funds, your card will be permanently terminated.
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