The American Express Serve card is almost fee-free, but it does have a $1 monthly fee if you didn’t load it with $500 within the past month. And the SoftServe card now has a $4.95 monthly fee which is not waived with $500+ per month in loads.
The good news is that all Serve accounts can get their monthly fee waived with direct deposit, and ACH bank transfers have been working as direct deposits to have the fee waived. Even a $1 ACH transfer will do the trick in my experience, and this can easily be automated from your regular checking account so that it goes out on its own each month. In this case, I believe the month goes based on the calendar month.
The official language on the Amex site is vague as to whether the direct deposit needs to be $500 or any amount (see this post), but, in practice, any amount has been working. That has been my experience and that of others. (1, 2, 3)
Another workaround mentioned is to keep the balance on the prepaid card at $0, and then no fee is charged, apparently. (1)
Since the demise of REDbird, many people have been adding OneVIP Serve cards to their arsenal, one per SSN, and don’t necessarily make use of each card every month. Instead of juggling multiple prepaid cards at Walmart and making sure to load $500 on each, just automate a monthly $1 ACH transfer from your regular checking account and you won’t have to think about it. Or keep the balance on the card at $0.
For regular Serve cards, this is a saving of $1 per month (hey, every bit counts!), and for SoftServe, it’s a savings of $4.95 per month. Note that residents of New York, Texas, and Vermont do not have a monthly fee on any Serve account.
See specific data points for direct deposits on Serve here.
The Monthly Fee Status page at “https://secure.serve.com/Manage/Fees” (logged in using a ONE VIP account) there is a clear description of how to avoid being charged the $1 fee:
“Add Money: Add $500 from cash, debit card, or credit card.
OR
Complete a Direct Deposit: Receive any amount via Direct Deposit.”
Seems like Amex is really taking a turn for the worse after they couldn’t come to an agreement with Costco.
Suddenly all Amex MS routes are being completely shut down.
I received the termination email as well. Anyone heard if there is a way around it or alternative AMEX products for the Serve?
Amex just sent me an email:
We are writing to let you know that we have observed unusual usage patterns on your American Express Serve Account. Because of this, effective immediately, you will no longer be able to add money to your Account.1 We have made this change in accordance with Section 15.d of our Consumer User Agreement, which you can view here.
Please be aware that you continue to have full access to the funds on your Account and can withdraw them at any time. Any applicable monthly fees continue to apply.
Once your balance reaches $0, please close your Account online via your Profile page accessible here. Scroll down to the Close Account section and click “Close Account.”
If you have any questions or would like to inquire further about this issue, you may write to us at the following address:
American Express
C/O Customer Relations 02-04-40
4315 S 2700 W
Salt Lake City, UT 84184-0440
Amex sent me a mail asking me to close my serve account because of “unusual usage pattern.”
Just done credit card loads to meet minimum spend and gift card loads at Walmart.
I think they just want old users not paying fee (old serve) to close down. Any thoughts?
Use this link to check if your direct deposit qualifies:
https://secure.serve.com/Manage/Fees
Not sure if you have noticed this, but they recently added a page called Monthly Fee Status under Settings (at least I see this on my SoftServe). The actually goes by statement cycles, not calendar months.
The exact words I see are “Your Monthly Fee is waived because you received a Direct Deposit during this monthly statement period. Your fee will be waived until January [my statement close date], 2016”