Does Amex Serve work like a debit card?

[longtimelurker]

I am confused about this!  AFAIK, there are really two uses for serve

1) The unbanked/underbanked.   Serve provides a fairly cheap banking mechanism for those who might not be able to get a good standard bank account

2) Rewards:  Load serve with a rewards credit card (or for those more adventerous, gift cards bought with a rewards credit card) and pay billers that don't accept credit cards.

Not sure the advantage in using it instead of a bank debit card.   The Amex protections are very limited, certainly not those that you find on their charge/credit cards.   Also, CS is often very poor, completely different team.

[longtimelurker]

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@TravellingNomad wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

The Serve is considered the AMEX alternative to a checking account. It's pretty much a debit card, but it's prepaid in a sense. You can set your direct deposit to go into it, you can set ACH transfers into your account, or you can use a debit card to add funds. This is the part I find cool. You can set a debit card up as a backup payment, so when you don't have money (or never did have any) in your Serve account, it will automatically charge the amount to your debit card. It's free to do all of that too. Plus you get the Amex protection when you use the card. 

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I read this on their FAQ and thought it was cool too.

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I assume you can set a limit.  Or that would ruin one other use case, where you don't want to expose your full bank account by using your bank debit card.

[TravellingNomad]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@TravellingNomad wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

The Serve is considered the AMEX alternative to a checking account. It's pretty much a debit card, but it's prepaid in a sense. You can set your direct deposit to go into it, you can set ACH transfers into your account, or you can use a debit card to add funds. This is the part I find cool. You can set a debit card up as a backup payment, so when you don't have money (or never did have any) in your Serve account, it will automatically charge the amount to your debit card. It's free to do all of that too. Plus you get the Amex protection when you use the card. 

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I read this on their FAQ and thought it was cool too.

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I assume you can set a limit.  Or that would ruin one other use case, where you don't want to expose your full bank account by using your bank debit card.

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And that is one reason why i was looking into something like Serve..to minimize the exposure of my bank debit card and bank account.

Its just a thought process right now to see if it will be worth it to have this for some of my spending.

Thanks everyone for all you insights!