Another bank stealth charge!

dzug1

vet8 wrote: »

My husband bought some currency from the PO last year and paid with his First Direct debit card. For some reason the PO phoned the bank and the bank said it would charge him a currency transaction fee (or something like that).

I thought it was a total rip off. If he had bought £100 of stamps or TV licence or something else his bank would not have charged him. The fact that he bought £100 of currency through the PO is no reason at all for his bank to charge. As far as they are concerned he is paying £100 at the PO, it could be for anything.

But (in the bank's view) he is not paying for a product. He is making a cash withdrawal and that withdrawal is not from an 'approved' free ATM.

I'm not saying I agree with that, but it's a sustainable argument with some logic to it - particularly as the bank makes the rules.

The best course of action if buying currency from the PO is to get the cash from an ATM first - or over the counter in the PO if it's one of the banks they deal with.

And just an irrelevant aside - the PO don't do TV licences.

dzug1

D1zzy wrote: »

I ran into this getting currency from the PO - so walked over the road to LLoyds and withdrew the cash to pay for it.
Despite Ts & Cs - stiil don't understand why currency is treated differently from other commodities. {except to try and ensure you purchase from them at a crap X rate}

Buy stamps in the PO - no charge
Buy currency in the PO-debit card charge

I suppose at some stage they could introduce a charge for purchasing any commodity - as long as its in the Ts and Cs of course!

You could have got cash over the counter in the PO with a Lloyds debit card and then used the cash. You could also have cashed a Lloyds cheque if that wasn't enough. A sufficiently knowledgeable PO clerk (not all are) would have told you this

dzug1

ShelfStacker wrote: »

Most card companies changed their T&Cs to say that gambling transactions count as cash advances, recently - for the simple reason that they more or less are, and that you could use gambling sites as a way to get interest free money off your credit card.

Gambling transactions on your account don't endear you to a bank, at any rate.

There's also the argument that gambling debts are not (or at one time were not - I may be out of date on this) enforceable through the courts, so that you could run them up on your CC and not pay them. If they've lent you the money as money that makes it legal.