To add to SailorJoe 's answer:
One Card is backed by a demand deposit account, which means it is a checking account. However, it has some additional goodies such as a high interest savings account and a link to WM which has 3% money back on WM purchases, and free deposits (loading).

It was this feature that got the MSers excited. Unfortunately, Costal Bank, the institution that backs One with the above banking services, has been under considerable Fed pressure in regards to ML activity and is exceptionally prickily about people who abuse their accounts with excessive deposits from unknown sources aka GCs and subsequent withdrawals.

If you treat this account like an ordinary checking account with attached savings account, it is a breeze to use. I do one direct deposit each month from an investment account and load around $600-800/month using GCs. I pay routine bills with the bill pay and use the card at WM.

Since this a checking account, you need to provide personal information including SS# as well as name and address which needs to be verified by Costal Bank. Without this information, all you are left with is a gift card.

I believe I have carefully read all 35 pages. I'm not new to MS but new to ONE and I have some comments that are questions - that is, are these comments currently accurate?:

1. Two ways to get ONE - off the rack at WM for $1 or order online for $0
2. Off the rack provides a temporary card; SCO is available until you have your permanent card
3. With the permanent card, $990 loads (up to $3K per day) are $0 fee when using app generated bar code

The key point in this list is #3 - wiki actually does not mention fees, but many posts do, suggesting the physical card is $3.74 but the barcode is free.
One app - is silent on 'cash from debit card loads' but suggests actual cash loads are $0, but who would do that?
Walmart details on ONE has the following statement:
You can load or unload up to $1,000 per transactions & complete up to three transactions a day. Fees vary between $0–$3.74 per transaction. Please note, your card issuer might have additional limits.

But the difference between a $0 load and a $3.74 load is too large - so I am seeking specific information about load costs/details about what is loaded, where and how to achieve $0 fee.
Finally, while the difference between $990 and $999 and $1000 is small, details about the specific amounts allowed (both in Flyertalk and the web documentation of ONE) seem unclear to me.
Thanks.

all loads are free at WM, or at least were free until they shut me down. Can�t say for sure if it changed recently

Still free at WM

I'm debating whether to link ONE to my expendable external broker so that I can initiate ACH pulls from the broker side. Does this seem like a good idea on balance? What are the pros and cons?

I've seen various stories and arguments on here about different kinds of risky behavior (other than loads) getting you shut down. So I think there could be pros and cons to my plan:

• Con: Initiating an external pull may seem suspicious.
  • However, I have regularly initiated external pulls from ONE to pay my credit card, so maybe that's okay?
• Pro: The site/app might crash or they might lock my access, but I might still be able to initiate a pull.

Currently my only "exit options" are

• cash withdrawal
• withdraw via debit card (I have it linked to BB, could use Cash App or similar maybe)
• do a push from ONE (I have one external bank linked there).

There is at least one other "exit option" I use with most reloadable cards.

As always, it depends on how active an account you have.
For example, loading around $1000 over a three week period in relatively small amounts and using the other features of the card, doing a single ACH pull to a brokerage account is unlikely to arouse much ire.

However, loading $900 ten times a month and doing five $550 ACH pulls will probably get you shut down at some point. Most banks have certain limits to number of deposits and withdrawals that can be made from free demand deposit accounts, and not all banks give that information out.
You might want to go to Coastal bank's website and see what their rules are for their ordinary checking accounts. This might give you some insight on what makes them hinky with their customers.
(And of course, it may not I haven't looked TBH because I don't do MSing types of behavior with them )

Got shutdown in October for loading $30k a month for 2 months. Anyone ever try and make a new account? How long did it last if they did.

Several DPs exist here where someone banned tried and was denied. To make One work, you need a SS# and other identifying information (Federal mandate) for bank accounts.
Some claim that the ban is lifetime.

I've been using my Discover debit to load $200 VGC from ODOM at Walmart and I've had nothing but issues lately with it not working.

If this ONE card is tied to a debit/checking account that would allow me to pay bills online, that would be a great alternative for what I need it for but is there any chance loading to the one card would actually work when the same process of loading to Discover no longer does?

You can billpay and transfer externally from One. You may as well open an account and try to load at WM, but I would guess the issue is the cards you're loading with, rather than disco.

Thanks. That's possibly true but there's many others that have no issues with the same cards based on the DPs. The one thing I've noticed is nothing I try works when there's a certain employee at the MC. Unfortunately for me he's there almost every time I go. But that too would basically mean the ONE would serve no purpose for me unless I can load from SCO?
After reading pages and pages it seems you can load from SCO with this card but no one seems to mention how. 🤔

You can load One at the cashier as long as they know how to do a 70 action code and the WM you are in permits cashiers to load debit cards.

As far as I know (and there are few DPs to the contrary), you cannot load a DC at SCO

I seem to remember reports that only the temp One cards you buy in WM stores work for SCO loading - once they send you a real debit card it doesn't work any longer.

If it works with other employees, it seems that this one just doesn't know what they are doing? Have you tried loading genuine debit card -> discover to see if they are even doing the right TX type?

Or you can ask if they are using a 70 action code. If they give you a strange look, you probably have your answer