MSE News discussion. Nationwide kills cheap overseas spending

Gamegal

Marksfish wrote: »

I am copying and pasting this direct from the EyeonSpain forum. It seems there may be a light at the end of the tunnel, but not with Nationwide:



Mark

MSE 2/11 http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/travel/2010/11/new-best-debit-card-for-overseas-spending-launches-in-january

mlwindia

Having switched from Abbey a couple of years ago when they introduced overseas charges it is very disappointing to see Nationwide going down the same route especially as they justify it by saying that it is because people abuse the system. Why not punish them instead of the thousands of people who do not? I have a large amount of savings with them and will change accounts as soon as the interest is paid on Dec 31st. One thing worth trying is to email Mr Beale the CEO at gjbeale2@nationwide.co.uk and see if he might listen to his shareholders, spread the word. Funny how the new charges were not mentioned at the AGM but announced shortly afterwards..

thethington

I wasn't sure whether to post this in a new thread or in here.

The Nationwide free withdrawals has been great for me as I moved to Italy, and its a shame that it ended. On the last two days before the 1st November fee introduction, I withdrew money from the ATM expecting it still to count as free transactions.

However, when i look at internet banking, it seems the second withdrawal wasn't processed in my account until the 4th November and therefore attracted the charges. Is this correct or should the transaction date be counted when the withdrawal is made?

Baldur

thethington wrote: »

Is this correct or should the transaction date be counted when the withdrawal is made?

See http://www.nationwide.co.uk/current_account/foreigntransactions.htm

Purchases and cash machine withdrawals
If you carry out a transaction using your card in a currency other than sterling, it will be converted to sterling on the day the transaction is processed by our card scheme providers at a wholesale rate of exchange, which may vary daily. For an indication of that exchange rate, you can see the Visa wholesale rate of exchange at www.visaeurope.com/fxcalculator. This is an "indication" because transactions are processed when the retailer passes them on to the scheme provider, which is generally not on the same day the transaction took place.

thethington

Baldur wrote: »

Purchases and cash machine withdrawals
If you carry out a transaction using your card in a currency other than sterling, it will be converted to sterling on the day the transaction is processed by our card scheme providers at a wholesale rate of exchange, which may vary daily. For an indication of that exchange rate, you can see the Visa wholesale rate of exchange at [snip]. This is an "indication" because transactions are processed when the retailer passes them on to the scheme provider, which is generally not on the same day the transaction took place.

Thanks, that does seem to cover when the charges are applied, and I realise from using the account that transactions do take a few days to show.

There does however seem to be a little grey area though since they say this (my emphasis):

From 1 November 2010 you will be charged the charges shown in the table below when you use your card anywhere abroad (or make payments in currencies other than sterling). These include all charges that we have to pay to other organisations on your behalf.

I could argue, I haven't used my card since 31st October and yet I have been charged.

nationwide.co.uk/current_account/flexaccount-changes.htm#a2

Baldur

thethington wrote: »

I could argue, I haven't used my card since 31st October and yet I have been charged.

You could try.....no harm can be done by trying to debate the semantics.

Inactive

I used my Nationwide Debit Card for cash withdrawal in Spain on the 31st October, it didn't show up until the 1st November and there was an " interest " marker listed against the transaction, however there was no actual interest deducted.

virgo17

Inactive wrote: »

I used my Nationwide Debit Card for cash withdrawal in Spain on the 31st October, it didn't show up until the 1st November and there was an " interest " marker listed against the transaction, however there was no actual interest deducted.

Absolutely the same here. 2 x €300 withdrawn on Costa Blanca on 31st October and interest fields both blank. Transaction dated 1st November on online statement.

thethington

Inactive wrote: »

I used my Nationwide Debit Card for cash withdrawal in Spain on the 31st October, it didn't show up until the 1st November and there was an " interest " marker listed against the transaction, however there was no actual interest deducted.

virgo17 wrote: »

Absolutely the same here. 2 x €300 withdrawn on Costa Blanca on 31st October and interest fields both blank. Transaction dated 1st November on online statement.

That is interesting, mine did take longer for the bank to post the transaction then - 4 days, I wonder why?

I'll keep asking them to see if they can revert the charges on this occasion, but not sure how i'll get on.

chucky66

Earlier this week we withdrew the equivalent of £144 abroad (in Asia), the exchange rate on xe.com showed 70.3 to £1 for the currency we were withdrawing. In the past Nationwide have always been very close, if not the same as this figure (taking off the previous 1% charge for being outside Europe).

On this withdrawal, on our statement it shows the exchange rate as 69.3, this difference in exchange rate alone made a difference of £2 to the withdrawal amount. The charges now show separately on our bank statement which is better than before, at least we can see what we are charged - there are separate lines for the foreign transaction fee and for the cash withdrawal fee. For this transaction we therefore got charged £2.88 plus £1 because it was a withdrawal from an ATM. Add all these up (including the £2 difference from the exchange rate) and £144 cost us a whopping £5.88, so roughly a 4% fee! :eek:

Some countries in Asia also charge between £2-3 for withdrawing money on a foreign bank's card, so using Nationwide with their new fees is starting to get very expensive in Asia considering we are already charged by the banks here!

We are in the process of applying for a Santander Zero account, this has no fees for using the card abroad. As soon as we can we will be switching our money over.

We wanted to post this about the rate of exchange as it was something we noticed that other people may not have...maybe that's something Nationwide are relying on and they make more money in the process?