When is a credit card not really a credit card?
Prepaid credit cards can give you many of the advantages of a credit card without the danger of getting seriously over your head in debt. A prepaid option is essentially a debit card that's not attached to a bank account. Instead, you 'load' the card by sending money to the issuing company (or paying at a merchant to have the money credited to your account). Then you can use the prepaid card just the way you would any other credit card to make purchases at the register, over the telephone or on the internet. Each time you make a purchase, the amount is deducted from your remaining balance. You can usually add money to your account at any time, though there's often a minimum and a maximum amount you can add at one time.

Why would you use a prepaid credit card?
In a word, convenience. It allows you the convenience of making purchases without cash and is accepted at any merchant that accepts credit cards with the same emblem. In other words, if you have a Visa card, any merchant that accepts Visa cards will accept your prepaid card. The one major exception to that rule is those services that set up a monthly debit from your credit card