In US you can go to many store and get such a card, pay with cash. Downsides are that some merchant (mostly internet ones) will check and refuse to accept such pre-paid options.
I think they fail at places that depend on recurring subscriptions.. so places like showtime mobile, or any place that says get a trial at X dollars, then pay Y dollars per month.. the processors gets some code returned to them telling them that the card is not able to take on recurring payments - and so many places won't work with them..
but they do work for most non-recurring type things akaik.
I have seen people have them fail - because they quickly try to use them, not knowing that many places require at a zip code to be entered that matches the card.. and if you have not logged into the pre-paid-card's portal and set a zip code.. well fail it will.
