Nationwide Card-overseas Use

Donnie

dbhavnani99 wrote:

I mainly use Nationwide Visa debit card for internet purchases. Also, when I go abroad I first use my Nationwide Debit card and by chance if I exhaust all money kept in my current account would then use my Nationwide Credit card.

I had opened a Nationwide Current account some years back. I Keep minimum balance in it. This has two advantages. No.1 when buying items on the net, pay through Nationwide Visa Flexaccount Debit card(Let's say credit card has a limit of 2000 quid so there is a chance that someone from whom you purchased item on the net could later misuse your cc to the extent of 2000 GBP).

But since you have minimum balance(let's say 50-100 quid in Nationwide current account), everytime you pay on net with Nationwide Debit visa card, even if the trader later misuses your card, you just have 50-100 quid in your bank account so the trader cannot misuse your card for more then 50-100 quid(the maximum balance you have in your current account).

I avoid using a Debit card for any purchases. Credit card offer better protection against fraud.

grumbler

dbhavnani99 wrote:

...But since you have minimum balance(let's say 50-100 quid in Nationwide current account), everytime you pay on net with Nationwide Debit visa card, even if the trader later misuses your card, you just have 50-100 quid in your bank account so the trader cannot misuse your card for more then 50-100 quid(the maximum balance you have in your current account).

This is incorrect. Low balance on a current account with a debit card cannot stop big amount being taken from the account, thus making the account overdrawn.

dbhavnani99

Grumbler

Are you sure? What sort of 'big amounts' are you talking about? You mean to say there is no maximum cap(set by a bank) a person can overdraw if the person has a current account?

ManAtHome

Donnie wrote:

Wrong!
DCC affects all UK cards equally.

It affects Nationwide more than the others as they don't charge for Euro to Stirling conversion. With DCC, the foreign bank gets the conversion commission, the UK bank sees a Stirling charge so no extra - you only pay one conversion charge. With N/w you therefore lose the full amount due to DCC, with others you lose the DCC charge less the 2.5% (ish) of the value they would have charged you for a Euro transaction.

So if DCC is a 3% loss, you lose 3% with a N/w card, 0.5% with the others as you'd have had a 2.5% (ish) charge anyway.

MarkyMarkD

Donnie wrote:

Nationwide were offering this service long before it became popular. It was just another bullet point in their literature.
To write that it is just a 'marketing benefit' is just nonsense.

Cobblers. It's a marketing benefit, just like 0% on balance transfers, or cashback, or a lower rate, or whatever, none of which Nationwide exceeds the best buy accounts in. Just because it wasn't a very successful marketing benefit for a few years doesn't negate that.

The "no foreign loading" is Nationwide's ONLY marketing benefit on their cards nowadays.

For people who only have one card, Nationwide's isn't worth having for this benefit alone.

For people who have many cards in their pocket, obviously it's worth having just to use for the foreign transactions, as I do with mine.

King_Of_Fools

dbhavnani99 wrote:

Grumbler

Are you sure? What sort of 'big amounts' are you talking about? You mean to say there is no maximum cap(set by a bank) a person can overdraw if the person has a current account?

Yes, there is usually a cap of around £100 over which a check is automatically performed. However, as long as you spend less than this the transaction can be "authorised" and this can occur multiple times.

So if you had only £1 in your account and somebody used your card to make 10 £99 purchases in one day you could go £989 overdrawn!