HSBC charging for gambling transactions?

faddy

Yesterday I was charged a cash handling fee for a payment from HSBC Mastercard to William Hill. Anyone know if their T&Cs have changed?

If they have will this be the first non-US bank operating in the UK to charge for gambling transactions?

Galstonian

I don't know, you should ask over on the gambling board if you don't get any answers here.

deemy2004

is your HSBC a cashback card ?

faddy

deemy2004 wrote:

is your HSBC a cashback card ?

No, vanilla Mastercard I've had for years.

Actually, to answer my own original post, I've realised HFC is non-US owned and charges for gambling txns, but then they're owned by HSBC so probably no great surprise if the parent is now doing likewise!

Don't remember getting any revised T&Cs though.

Tim_L

It is possible to use gambling sites for a form of pure cash advance, i.e. you put cash down at the site from a credit card then withdraw it to a bank account.

There are also some money laundering implications as you can shift cash around virtually untraceably using matched betting (the technique we on the gambling board use to extract free cash from bookmaker offers). So it's not altogether surprising credit card firms are discouraging the use of their products on gaming and gambling sites.

faddy

HSBC have reversed the charges and written to say they were due to a system error. (To be more precise they reversed manually the one I complained about, then later reversed all of them including that one, leaving me a whole £1.50 up on the deal!)

I would imagine that either they brought in planned charges too early, or they're sharing a system with their HFC subsidiary, who do charge.

faddy

Tim_L wrote:

It is possible to use gambling sites for a form of pure cash advance, i.e. you put cash down at the site from a credit card then withdraw it to a bank account.

But the cost of that is borne by the bookies via their card processing fees, so why would the banks worry? I suspect the reason for treating betting transactions differently is more to do with the huge chargeback rate, coupled with a degree of US-inspired moral panic.

As our own dear government is trying to build up the UK gambling industry, I suspect there may eventually be official pressure on UK banks not to levy these charges. (probably just wishful thinking)