We are in the throes of CES madness and running from meeting to meeting but I did want to take a few minutes to post a quick update on my Bluebird experience. You might recall it started smoothly enough. I opened an account and deposited $100 in cash at my local Walmart. All went smoothly. When I went to link my bank account to my Bluebird account I ran into a hiccup and it took three days for the process to come to fruition and the accounts be linked. It was no deal for me but for someone who was planning on access to their money those three days could mean trouble.

Then things got even worse. I initiated a transfer of money from my bank to Bluebird and then waited… and waited… and waited. Yesterday I went to make a purchase using the card and found it was rejected. On closer examination I found that not only hadn’t the second $100 transferred but, as a result of the delay, my account was “overdrawn”. Again, this wasn’t a huge issue for me, after all this is a posting experiment not a financial system upon which I am going to depend. For someone who did need access to that $100 it would mean a huge issue.

This morning I awoke to an email notifying me that the second $100 had finally cleared and was in my account. (More accurately, $97 and change were available since $2+ dollars had gone toward the amount I had been previously “overdrawn”.) It is not a good situation and, again, for those needing that cash such a delay is unacceptable.

To make matters worse, as an experiment I transferred some money from my PayPal account to Judie’s. While I know PayPal is far from perfect it is worth noting that the transfer occurred in a matter of seconds.

Again, since we are at CES all week this is just a quick update that I thought was important for those following the series, and I will give a more thorough run-down of everything once I return and have full updates from Bluebird support.

You can learn more about the service here on the Bluebird website.

Bluebird from American Express has sponsored our documenting the experience of using their service.

The first post was a brief overview. The second delved more deeply into the features. The most recent walked through the process of adding money to a Bluebird account using cash at a local Walmart.

In this post we’ll walk through the process of linking an existing bank account to a Bluebird account. This makes it easy to add money without having to have cash on hand or being close to a Walmart.

The process is simple enough, but there are a few hiccups I encountered that were more than a bit annoying.

First, once you input your bank’s information, you are thrown into a two to three-day limbo of waiting for the system to do whatever it needs to do to verify that everything is kosher. Then, after having waited two or three days, you have to actually go to your bank account’s web portal or call the automated system to find out the amounts of two small deposits Bluebird put into the account. Similar to the verification process PayPal uses ensure you own both accounts, this step introduces a three-day delay and requires that you to check with your bank. It is, as we are fond of saying on Gear Diary, a first world annoyance, but it is still an annoyance.

I input the two small amounts that had been deposited into my checking account and submitted them.

I was immediately informed that the account had been verified. From there I was good to go and would be able to move money from checking to my BlueBird account … right? Not so much.

You see, I set out to transfer $100 from checking to Bluebird. The process was simple enough and required just a few taps. Yet despite my having linked the two accounts and verified my ownership of both, the money showed as pending approval. A few hours later, and it still does. I’m not quite sure why there is a delay since the accounts are verified but… there it is.

And suddenly, this reader comment on one of the earlier posts takes on new importance…

When a customer tries to use remote check deposit Amex holds the check for 6 business days and during that time runs extensive credit and background checks. The terms and conditions details that. At that point if they don’t like what they see, they will freeze your account and your funds.

The web is already filled with bad reviews about the horrible customer service and accounts being frozen for no reason.

Until now, my experience using Bluebird has been entirely positive, but I’ll hold judgment and see how long this additional $100 takes to appear in my account.

Next up … adding Judie as a sub account so we can use Bluebird together at CES.

You can learn more about Bluebird here.

Last week we begin a series of review posts regarding the new joint venture between Walmart and American Express. Bluebird is a system that allows you to have a card with minimal or no transaction fees coupled with the convenience of a debit card backed by all of the protection offered by American Express.

The first post was a brief overview of the bluebird system. (Read the post.) The second post went a bit more deeply into the features Bluebird offers and the specifics that make this card unique. (Read the post.) In this third sponsored post, we’ll begin looking at how you actually get money into your account and, from there, will look at the actual experience of using the card for purchases.

A few days after I opened my Bluebird account, a Bluebird card arrived in the mail. It looks like any credit card and is branded with both the Bluebird and American Express name and logo. The card itself does not mention that this is a joint venture of American Express and Walmart. Unlike our American Express card (I’ve had one since 1992) this isn’t a credit but rather a “Checking & Debit Alternative”. That means the card itself, while activated, didn’t have any spending capacity.

I needed to get money into my Bluebird account before that could happen.

Bluebird offers a number of ways to add money to your account and begin spending.

You can set up Direct Deposit (I’m not interested in that, since Elana and I have a systems already in place that I didn’t want to mess up).

You can add a new funding source (we’ll cover that in the next post)

You can also “deposit money at these location”.

Clicking “deposit money at these location” brought up a Walmart store locator. The website also indicated the ability to use a Vanilla Reload Network Prepaid Reload to deposit money into my Bluebird account. I decided that, for this first time out, I would simply deposit cash into my account. That’s when the convenience factor began to kick in. You see, we have a Walmart not two miles from our house.

I jumped in the car this morning and drove to Walmart. I felt a bit sheepish, but I walked up to one of the cashiers and said, “Uhm, so I’m new to this whole Bluebird world, but I understand I can add money to my account at any Walmart. What do I need to do?”

She smiled and said, “I can swipe the card and add the funds right here.” Wow, that was easy!

I asked If I could deposit money into my Bluebird account by charging to a different card. Hey, it was worth asking right? Of course I could not, since Bluebird is “Cash for Charge” as the clerk put it.

This particular woman was very nice, but she had not used a Bluebird card before. After a few failed attempts, she called another clerk over. The second clerk swiped the card, asked how much I wanted to despot and took a $100 bill from me. “What’s next?” I asked.

“Nothing she replied, the money should be in your account.”

I checked, and sure enough my Bluebird account had $100 to spend.

It was fast, simple, and I now have a card that I can use almost anywhere.

I even got an email confirming the transaction.

But what if you don’t want to carry the cash into Walmart? That’s where linking your Bluebird account to your current Banking Account comes in. We’ll look at that in the next post.

You can learn more about Bluebird here on the Bluebird website.

♫♫♫♫♫ ‘Tis The Season to Spend Money, fah lah lah lah, lah lah lah lah… ♫♫♫♫♫

The other day we brought word about Bluebird, a new joint initiative between American Express and Walmart. Bluebird lets you make direct deposits, pay bills online, deposit checks with your iPhone or Android device, set up Sub-Accounts, and more.

As I noted in that first post, we were invited to open an account and try out the service. This is a sponsored series of posts, but the observations and experiences I’ll be documenting in the coming weeks are mine and mine alone.

In this post I want to look at some of Bluebird’s features. Then, on Friday, we’ll actually start using the service.

Thanks to its ability to create and use Sub-Accounts, Bluebird is a family affair.

Sub-Accounts are a great way to give everyone in the household access to the account while still maintaining control of spending. Best of all, everything can be done from your computer, smartphone or tablet. Other Bluebird Account features include:

• Purchase Protection: Can provide coverage if an eligible purchase made with your Card is accidentally damaged or stolen within 90 days of purchase.
• Fraud Protection: If your Card is lost or stolen, you won’t be responsible for fraudulent Card charges.
• Global Assist Services: Medical, legal, and financial assistance when you’re more than 100 miles from home.
• Roadside Assistance: Just call us if you have emergency car trouble and we’ll send help.
• Entertainment Access: You’ll get special savings and advance tickets to some of the hottest events in music, sports, and theater.
• 24/7 access to award-winning American Express Customer Service.

Best of all, Bluebird has:

• No annual fees
• No monthly fees
• No overdraft fees
• No minimum balance fees
• No Card replacement fees
• No foreign exchange fees

In all, Bluebird looks to be the next evolutionary step in mobile banking. It takes all the features customers use, and brings them together in a platform that was built from the ground up with online banking and mobile devices in mind. You can learn more here on the Bluebird website. We’ll be back with the third installment of this series Friday, as we open an account and begin using the service.

♫♫♫♫♫ ‘Tis The Season to Spend Money, fah lah lah lah, lah lah lah lah… ♫♫♫♫♫

What could be better than an entire season dedicated to separating you from your money? I’m kidding but still, this is the season when money seems to flow more heavily than usual. Having a safe, convenient and secure way to spend can be a huge help.

It turns out that American Express and Walmart have teamed up to offer a way to do just that – Bluebird. Bluebird lets you make direct deposits, pay bills online, deposit checks with your iPhone or Android device, set up Sub-Accounts, and more.

We were invited to open an account and try out the service. And while this is a sponsored endeavor, the observations and experiences I’ll be documenting in the coming weeks are mine and mine alone.

There are more advantages to the Bluebird platform, and we’ll be taking a look at them in the second part of this ongoing sponsored series. From there I’ll be documenting my experience setting up an account and using Bluebird on a daily basis. It you are interested in learning more now, you can click here to visit the Bluebird website.