Can you pre-load a credit card

TrickyDicky

We have to make a purchase from the USA for rather a large amount, >$15,000. We dont have the credit limit on our cards (largest limit is £4500) to cover this but have the savings. Instead of doing a bank transfer (which has all the transfer fees and exchange rate issues that come with inter-continental banking) can we pre-load the cash onto a credit card and purchase this way? Are there any problems with this? Do we have the same rights as normal purchases on credit cards?

Do credit card companies not allow pre-loading?

INT1

It is normally against T+C's to put the account in to credit, however I have seen people do this before and if it's a one off wouldn't matter too much.

Your more at risk though for the transaction to be declined or referred. You would then have to call them for them to make the card work.

lisyloo

Which card have you got

1)Most are not designed for pre-loading and you might get charged penalty fees.
2)A lot of cards have a 2.95% loading on the curency exchange rate. You won't see this as an explicit charge, but the exchange rate will be 2.95% worse than FOREX.
3) If your money is stolen or used fraudulently then you are probably not insured.

All of the above depends on which card it is, hence the first question.

Ansu

If you put that amount on, you would probably have your card blocked by anti-money laundering checks with your card provider. It's usually against the T&Cs to put your card into credit, though they overlook small amounts.



Edit: also, if they did block your card for pre-loading it with money, you would not have access to that money for quite some time as they may conduct an investigation into the source of the funds etc, to be sure that they are not fraudulent.

TrickyDicky

First thought was to use a Barclaycard.

I have an egg money account - given how this works would it be better to use this instead?

INT1

lisyloo wrote: »

Which card have you got

1)Most are not designed for pre-loading and you might get charged penalty fees.
2)A lot of cards have a 2.95% loading on the curency exchange rate. You won't see this as an explicit charge, but the exchange rate will be 2.95% worse than FOREX.
3) If your money is stolen or used fraudulently then you are probably not insured.

All of the above depends on which card it is, hence the first question.

I don't think it is a Pre-Paid card as the OP mentions the credit limit.

TrickyDicky

Apart from a credit card, could someone suggest the best and cheapest way to make this purchase. The seller (its a company not an individual) can take ccard payments (hence our first idea) or direct bank transfer and we have the bank details, but they (the seller) charge a $25 fee for this with purchasers from abroad.

INT1

Give your CC company a ring if you haven't already done so and ask for a limit increase, or even a temporary increase.
If that fails, I would chance putting it in to credit and trying that. As a last resort your fee is going to be 25 dollars which is only about £13/14?

CC companies tend to charge a foreign curreny handling fee of about 2.5/2.75% of the amount you are paying don't forget.

ViolaLass

Can you pay it with more than one card? Also, I've found the US often accept debit cards when they say they want credit cards.

jamespir

they do pre pay cards could you use one of those

co123456

You're going to get hit with poor exchange rates and fees using the credit card.

I would transfer from the bank account.