MOL FREEDOM CARD HANDS ON EXPERIENCE

"Mol Freedom Mastercard is a prepaid mastercard that can be used to purchase goods like a credit card but with spending limited to the amount of money stored on the card-similar to your prepaid mobile phone service"
Im sure many Malaysians knew or heard about this card before, since its launch in mid-2007 and many are interested to sign up for its services. And months after its release, I decided to jump on the MOL Freedom Mastercard bandwagon. Since there are few hands-on review about this card, I decided to share my hands-on experience with the card starting from the moment I first bought the card till it is fully functional. So, here it goes....

17th November 2007

I went to a local 7-E outlet and bought my MOL Freedom starter pack for RM25. Inside the pack you'll find the physical card itself, an application form, some vouchers and TOC leaflets and of course the guide. So I take a sit for a while to read briefly on the given guide on how to start using the card. Then I filled up the form as required and post it back on the same day via PosExpress(the yellow envelope from PosMalaysia). According to the guide, the bank will contact me via phone once my application has been approved. Note that once the card has been approved it doesnt mean that it is activated yet(they didnt write it anywhere on the guide so this could be confusing to some people including me). So I wait......

23rd November 2007

Im still waiting for the bank to call or SMS me regarding my application. To my surprise, they sent an email instead. Luckily I frequently checked my emails and this morning I recieved an email from MOL Freedom informing that my apllication have been approved. Unaware of the card is still unactive, I used the card to verify my paypal account and guess what? It rejected the card lol. This is because the card is still uncative. In order to make the card active you must initially top-up the card with the minimum amount of RM50. The bank will deduct a sum of RM15 for the activation fee. Since its already in the evening I decided to topup the next morning at EON bank(Although there is a 7-E nearby, I prefer to bank in directly at EON as its free, otherwise they will deduct RM4,RM2 depending on where u top-up;refer to the guide).

24th November 2007

So the next morning I went to EON bank and deposited RM100 into the card. The process is simple similar to other counter cash deposit process. It went without a fuss. After that I immediately called the hotline written on the back of the card to ask whether my card is activated and the operator told me that I have to wait for an SMS confirming the activation of the card. So I waited and waited untill the evening and decided to call them back. This time, to my delight another operator told me my that my card have been activated and informed me that the balance is RM85(RM100 - RM15(activation fee) = RM85). This is where they slack; they promised to inform us via phone or SMS but from my experience, none is recieved an it is up to us to check via email or phone them back for confirmation(actually I really dont care much about this). So all and all it took me roughly 7 days for my card to be fully functioning and usable....not bad eh? since I read a post in some forums stated that it took about 2 weeks for some people...

Testing the card

Now come the part where the fun starts ;-). Before doing any transaction, I called the bank and asked them a few questions and here are some infos that I recieved:

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  You CAN use to the card for verification pupose on paypal (MAKE SURE YOUR CARD IS ACTIVATED FIRST OTHERWISE IT DOESNT WORK)

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  You CAN make international transaction via paypal (providing that you have enough money on the card)

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  You CAN withdraw money from paypal onto the card (make sure you call the bank and inform them first) note: I havent done this yet but they said it is possible.

After adding the card to my paypal account I decided to try an international transaction by buying a rapidshare premium account. The process is fast and straightforward. I immediately obtained my new account details on the spot...

Conclusion

As a conclusion, I thought MOL Freedom card is quite good. The first year annual fee is waived and for the following year it is RM20 and could be waived if you used the card 12 times or more. It think its cheaper and better than its counterpart which is the AMBANK NEXTG providing that you do the topup at any EON bank branch. Thats all, feel free to comment and ask anything....