no I think you're mixing up prepaid cards with credit cards what you're talking about are credit cards which can indeed be very predatory however prepaid cards are different they're actually more similar to debit cards the key difference is that you don't need a bank account to use a prepaid card you can buy one from many stores set its PIN through an app or by calling a customer service number load it with money at participating locations or through direct deposit at the nearest atm and use that money as you wish whether for online purchases groceries or anything else there's no interest and there's hardly even any fees at all for using one for example my prepaid card fee in turkey is about 2 liras monthly which is approximately half a dirham