Maestro Card - False Advertising

thermalaudio

For thousands of people in the UK, many banks & building societies automatically give you a Maestro card as the payment card associated with your accounts.

Maestro (which is the debit version of Mastercard) have spent millions on advertising the Maestro card as 'the new cash'

If we pay for items in retail outlets using cash.. Naturally there is no charge for us using cash.

If we pay for items in retail outlets, over the phone, online or make flight bookings using our Maestro cards which is clearly advertised as being the new cash..

These retailers are then charging us between 45 pence upto £3.00 for the use of a Maestro card which they claim to be an administration fee.

My local newsagent charges 0.45p for each transaction on a card, to cover their cost to the PDQ terminal owner. At least they are honest!!

T - Mobile, Virgin Media, Vodafone all charge £3.00 per debit card transaction, despite their systems being fully automated & collecting millions of payments every single day from millions of customers.

So are we eligible to collect these extra payments from Maestro's false advertising, can we dispute ridiculously overpriced payments added onto our bills from the big companies in the UK?

After looking into this for sometime, It actually costs each bank £0.43p per transaction to complete the PDQ entry. So perhaps martin should step in to put a stop to this totally obscure behaviour & get us some money back.

opinions4u

So are you advocating that banks should pass that 43p charge on to individual customers?

scubaangel

Someone has to pay for the terminals, and systems required to use cards to pay rather than cash, most shops are more than happy to absorb the charge in to their day to day running costs, unfortunately some smaller business' find they have to add a small fee to cover it, and as far as I'm concerned larger companies levying fees are simply profiteering so the solution simply is to go to the cashmachine and withdraw whatever you want to spend and not buy from them online or via phone.

thermalaudio

scubaangel wrote: »

Someone has to pay for the terminals, and systems required to use cards to pay rather than cash, most shops are more than happy to absorb the charge in to their day to day running costs, unfortunately some smaller business' find they have to add a small fee to cover it, and as far as I'm concerned larger companies levying fees are simply profiteering so the solution simply is to go to the cashmachine and withdraw whatever you want to spend and not buy from them online or via phone.

I think you must have misread somewhere along here..

I'm not against paying the honest cost of 43p.. I'm against being forced to pay £3.00 per transaction to huge companies that i cannot physically go and pay in cash!

I'm not advocating banks should pass the cost onto individuals.. the banks charge 43p to the retailers, who are then profiteering £2.57 per transaction on top of the initial outlay cost at consumers expense!

eso_3

So every time you make a transaction with a Maestro card it costs you at least 43p? (This didn't happen with the Solo card I had).

opinions4u

thermalaudio wrote: »

I think you must have misread somewhere along here..

I'm not against paying the honest cost of 43p.. I'm against being forced to pay £3.00 per transaction to huge companies that i cannot physically go and pay in cash!

I'm not advocating banks should pass the cost onto individuals.. the banks charge 43p to the retailers, who are then profiteering £2.57 per transaction on top of the initial outlay cost at consumers expense!

That one is simple then.

Shop elsewhere (or get an Electron card for people like Ryan Air).

It's not Maestro who are making the charge. It's the retailer.

thermalaudio

opinions4u wrote: »

That one is simple then.

Shop elsewhere (or get an Electron card for people like Ryan Air).

It's not Maestro who are making the charge. It's the retailer.

haha.. ryanair.. as if.. I'm talking about BMI, Air Canada, BA etc

Electron card?? Hardly anywhere accepts an electron card as with cheques these days.. chav planet i'm not on.. sorry

So back to the original point.. Maestro are falsely advertising the card claiming it to be the new cash, when infact it is clearly not! otherwise they the card makers should be footing the bills

[Deleted User]

Where are Mastercard advertising that usage of their cards will never incur a fee?

That would be false advertising if they did so.

Rafter

Agree these charges are outrageous but can't see the blame lying with Maestro. It is the retailers, airlines and phone companies that are adding extra charges to keep their prices the same but adding stealth charges elsewhere. Guess they must have been taking lessons from the government with stealth taxes!

Personally I think your newsagent is being cheeky too. Sure the machine costs him, but so does a safe, bank charges and a till for holding cash which he doesn't charge a premium for.

I think the airlines etc should be banned for adding charges for debit cards. Credit cards are different because of the S75. protection they give you if the airline or travel company goes under.

R.

Qasim

thermalaudio wrote: »

After looking into this for sometime, It actually costs each bank £0.43p per transaction to complete the PDQ entry.

hmm

Does it cost a similar amount for Visa Debit transactions? as I have never been charged for those

Also just to clarify - some places charge this fee for maestro and others just absorb it? recently got one from HSBC just wondering if it is worth using it

Those 45p's will stack up....

Lokolo

Qasim wrote: »

hmm

Does it cost a similar amount for Visa Debit transactions? as I have never been charged for those

Also just to clarify - some places charge this fee for maestro and others just absorb it? recently got one from HSBC just wondering if it is worth using it

Those 45p's will stack up....

Visa is more expensive to retailers, which is why retailers (smaller ones esp) are p*ssed at HSBC because they are changing all their cards from Maestro to Visa from Jan/Feb 2009 - rolling out over til 2010.