Charge Card

lisyloo

In that case, the second account is ideal for you.

Do you mean a bank account?
Isn't the issue with this, the fact that expenses are paid retrospecitively.
A credit card generally leaves you enough time to pay off expenses in the intereest free period.

Whilst a company cannot force you to get one, it's a very widespread practice.
In fact many people get cashback and other benefits from it.

Being a "difficult" employee could lead you to advance to the top of the redundancy list. Employers want "can do" people who don't moan every five minutes about minor issues. This practice is VERY widespread and savvy consumers will use it for cashback or loyalty benefits.
If you are doing a lot of travelling then a lot of employers give interest free advances.

euronorris

Lisyloo, I think you have missed the underlying point we are trying to make here.

Dabooka

lisyloo wrote: »

Do you mean a bank account?
Isn't the issue with this, the fact that expenses are paid retrospecitively.
A credit card generally leaves you enough time to pay off expenses in the intereest free period.

Whilst a company cannot force you to get one, it's a very widespread practice.
In fact many people get cashback and other benefits from it.

Being a "difficult" employee could lead you to advance to the top of the redundancy list. Employers want "can do" people who don't moan every five minutes about minor issues. This practice is VERY widespread and savvy consumers will use it for cashback or loyalty benefits.
If you are doing a lot of travelling then a lot of employers give interest free advances.

The OP wanted a charge card, not a credit card. He wanted the security in knowing he had no access to additional credit to help manage his money.

Most expenses are retrospective, so it's fairly usual for us to pay with our own money and claim it back, hence the suggestion of a second bank account. It is doubtful if a CC application would be successful anyway

euronorris

Also, a company should, in no way, discriminate against it's employees. Credit Cards are not available to everyone and therefore, they should not insist they have one for work expenses. And threatening someone with redundancy would be discrimination against him and his circumstances.

I fail to see what benefit having a credit card would provide to the employer? The expenses would still be paid to his bank account anyway, so what difference does it make to them?

lisyloo

so it's fairly usual for us to pay with our own money and claim it back

Oh, ok.
It's fairly normal in my line of work (IT) , to use a credit card and then pay it off before the interest free period expires i.e. not using your own money.

If he/she has the money to fund expenses, then I agree, the seperate account should work fine.

Rafter

Suggest an egg card? Direct debit is automatic and you can set it to clear the full amount, or if your expenses haven't come through our you make a major purchase you are happy to spread over a few months then you can change the DD amount online.

Good luck

R.

Dabooka

lisyloo wrote: »

Oh, ok.
It's fairly normal in my line of work (IT) , to use a credit card and then pay it off before the interest free period expires i.e. not using your own money.

If he/she has the money to fund expenses, then I agree, the seperate account should work fine.

I agree fully, I know plenty of people that use a CC for expenses BUT it's their choice to use it and not their work insisting. And incidently, when I said fund expenses with your own money, I would include a private CC into that.

lisyloo

Also, a company should, in no way, discriminate against it's employees. Credit Cards are not available to everyone and therefore, they should not insist they have one for work expenses.

My company (which is a good employer) has some procedures in place for people that can't get credit.
I was not aware the OP couldn't get credit.
I was more referring to someone who was refusing simply on grounds of principle (which sort of came across in your posts).
In the companies I've worked for, if you were just digging your heels in to be difficult (rather than a genuine problem) then you would not be considered a flexible team player and some companies would mark you down in categories of "team working" and "flexibility". I don't know if it's legal in this scenario but I know with scores of 1-5 it would be impossible to prove and would not refer to specifics.

And threatening someone with redundancy would be discrimination against him and his circumstances.

I did not mean directly threaten you as a direct result of this.
But if a company feels you are a whinging moaner who will not put themselves out or be a team player then they can mark you down for that at the next redundancy round.
You would not be able to prove that it was for that specifically and it would be very hard to dispprove your score (I been through it twice and catgories like "flexibility" are wooly and subjective). You would not be able to tie it up to specific incidents if it applied to your performance over the last X years,
I am not talking about people with genunine issues here.
You post came across that you were recommending sdigging your heels inn out of principle.
Sorry if I read it wrong, perhaps some of you are using some history of the poster that I do not have.
My company does make arrangements for people without credit cards (I have an interest free cash advance sitting in my bank right now).

I fail to see what benefit having a credit card would provide to the employer?

When my company had company Barclaycards that they paid direct, the cost was 0.5 person in administration to reconcile expenses claims to credit card statements.
So the benefit of moving to personal credit cards was 0.5 admin persons costs.

I was referring to benefits to the individual.
My benefit is cashback, but it could be any loyalty reward depending on which card you pick.

lisyloo

I agree fully, I know plenty of people that use a CC for expenses BUT it's their choice to use it and not their work insisting

Well it's my employers policy and it's what they'd expect employees who are not credit compromised to do.
So they don't insist but there would be an expectation and I don't think they'd consider you particular career worthy if you don't have a genuine issue but want to dig your heels in.
Of course if you had a genuine issue then that's totally different.

And incidently, when I said fund expenses with your own money, I would include a private CC into that.

Aha, different terminology then.
I know what you mean because technically I'm liable but if the money is comming in during the interest free period, then I would not include it in my personal debt figures.
I might be more cautious if my company was not financially stable.

euronorris

lisyloo wrote: »

My company (which is a good employer) has some procedures in place for people that can't get credit.
I was not aware the OP couldn't get credit.
I was more referring to someone who was refusing simply on grounds of principle (which sort of came across in your posts).
In the companies I've worked for, if you were just digging your heels in to be difficult (rather than a genuine problem) then you would not be considered a flexible team player and some companies would mark you down in categories of "team working" and "flexibility". I don't know if it's legal in this scenario but I know with scores of 1-5 it would be impossible to prove and would not refer to specifics.

I did not mean directly threaten you as a direct result of this.
But if a company feels you are a whinging moaner who will not put themselves out or be a team player then they can mark you down for that at the next redundancy round.
You would not be able to prove that it was for that specifically and it would be very hard to dispprove your score (I been through it twice and catgories like "flexibility" are wooly and subjective). You would not be able to tie it up to specific incidents if it applied to your performance over the last X years,
I am not talking about people with genunine issues here.
You post came across that you were recommending sdigging your heels inn out of principle.
Sorry if I read it wrong, perhaps some of you are using some history of the poster that I do not have.
My company does make arrangements for people without credit cards (I have an interest free cash advance sitting in my bank right now).



When my company had company Barclaycards that they paid direct, the cost was 0.5 person in administration to reconcile expenses claims to credit card statements.
So the benefit of moving to personal credit cards was 0.5 admin persons costs.

I was referring to benefits to the individual.
My benefit is cashback, but it could be any loyalty reward depending on which card you pick.

The question of whether or not the OP can get credit is not confirmed, but suspected no. From another thread (I think someone posted a link to it earlier), you can see that he has worked hard at reducing his debt, but has incurred quite a lot of late payments etc which affect his credit rating.

Plus, he mentioned that he didn't want to overspend on a CC, hence why he was after the charge card in the first place.

Because of this, I was agreeing with Dabooko that a separate bank account would be a better choice for him.

The fact that his employer is telling him he has to get a CC for work expenses, with no regard to his personal financial situation (or so it seems), did get my back up a bit. I wasn't trying to imply he should dig his heels in, but it is certainly very unreasonable of them to just expect it of every employee. Everyone is different.

I'm well aware of the 'teamwork' and 'flexibility' ratings that employers apply. Such a tricky subject. What one person considers extremely felxible, would be considered standard by another, for example.

With respect to the threat of redundancy. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come accross as meaning that you are singling him out etc

With respect to the processing costs. If he doesn't have a CC and uses his bank account instead, then the company still shouldn't incur costs.

The only benefit to them, that I can think of, is that he would be able to spend more with a CC, as opposed to using his disposable income.

Sorry about the misunderstandings. It can be difficult to put your point accross clearly on forums sometimes.