Is it possible to use a credit card to pay a bill by direct debit?

Merroney

Hi everyone,

I use my Tesco Clubcard Mastercard to pay for everything I buy, so I rack up my Tesco Clubcard points.

I rang Tesco to ask if it was possible to set up direct debits to pay for my household bills too and they said yes and all I needed to do was ring each utility provider and change the direct debit details. But when I tried to do this, I was told that I couldn't do it unless I had an account number and sort code, which I don't have for my Mastercard.

Does anyone know what I do? Thanks for your help.

financial_warrior

A direct debit comes from a bank account. A recurring payment comes from a credit card. Most utility companies are funny about accepting credit card payments, and I doubt any of them are able to set-up recurring payments.

sicker

Short answer, no

cifpower

You would have to pay using your CC on an ad hoc basis whenever a bill arises (assuming the company accepts CCs as a method of payment of course) or set up a Continuous Payment Authority which utility companies etc do not do.

JohalaReewi

Merroney wrote: »

I use my Tesco Clubcard Mastercard to pay for everything I buy, so I rack up my Tesco Clubcard points.

I rang Tesco to ask if it was possible to set up direct debits to pay for my household bills too...

As financial_warrior said, a direct debit comes from a bank account (and nowhere else) so there is no such thing as a 'direct debit to a credit card'.

What you are really asking is if it is possible to set up a Continuous Payment Authority (CPA) to pay your household bills (as mentioned by cifpower).

The answer is sometimes. You will need to check with each of your suppliers to see if they will accept payment by credit card and if they can set up a CPA for regular payments. Some do, some don't.

There are two problems though. Paying by credit card means you are not paying by direct debit so you are likely to be charged more (like with gas, electricity, BT, etc.). Some suppliers may even add on an extra credit card handling fee.

The second problem is that a CPA can only be cancelled by the supplier so if you switch supplier, you have to ask the old supplier to cancel the CPA and hope that they do. Unlike a direct debit which you can cancel yourself. There are many threads on MSE where people have had problems getting suppliers to cancel CPAs.

On the plus side, you can pay for your TV licence online using a credit card with no fee charged! Get those clubcard points!

lisyloo

On the whole you won't find many utility companies that accept credit card payments.
TV licence will be the exception rather than the rule.

My advice is NEVER is use continous card authority.
Lots of people have problems with it.
It's easy for companies to cynically lose your phone calls or letters and it's very hard to get this resolved.
With direct debit you have legal rights and your bank have no option but to honour cancellation.