Charges appearing from debit card

liquidstool_2

Hey,

Not sure that this is the right forum, but as my debit card is linked to my current account........

Over the past few days i have noticed several charges for £1.25 appearring in my current account under the heading "overseas transaction".

As i have not been overseas, this was a mystery so i phoned the bank and was told that the charge is from paying for either goods or services in a different currency. Well, i've always paid for this with my debit card and have never had these charges. The reply was that "this charge has always been included in the total, now, you will still pay the same but the charge is listed seperatley" is this true? I paid a small donation to a gaming site i use, i paid $29.95 dollars, which worked out at £18.86p adding in the exchange rate of 0.63% brought that total to £19.51p, then when the "overseas use fee" went on, this brought my charge to £20.11p - i don't ever remember seeing this regular donation being so high. Can somebody confirm that this has always been the case and that i'm not being stitched up?

dzug1

Overseas usage charges have existed for yonx - at least 20 years. And yes they used to be hidden in the total amount and are now usually shown separately.

But I 'm not sure the £1.25 is overseas usage as such - it may be a fee for taking cash other than from an 'approved' ATM. Gambling transactions are treated as cash by an increasing number of card companies. This is a fairly recent development - showing it separately more recent still.

Or (perhaps more likely) you may have one of the 'cards from hell' that charges an overseas transaction fee. Again not new, again being shown separately is.

You are not being stitched up - well not any more than normal.

pmduk

RBS consider charges to Google checkout as cash withdrawals for some strange reason.

Twister84

This link should help clarify transactions made in a foreign currency:

http://www.rbs.co.uk/personal/current-accounts/g2/debit-cards/card-abroad.ashx#tabs=section2

Rob_B_4

Hello MSE forums - sorry for hijacking another thread, but felt it better than making a duplicate for the same issue,

I have just discovered that I am now getting hit with overseas transaction fees when using Google Checkout (more specifically, buying apps on Android).

The thing is, the charges aren't part of the originial cost as mentioned above. Both charges were for £1.25 - these were on top of the cost of the apps, 69p and £1.19.

I feel this is pretty shady, since I'm neither abroad nor using an foreign payment service (if it's available to me in the UK, shouldn't it be classed as a UK payment service?). Paypal doesn't suffer from this.

What are the chances of Santander reversing these charges? Understandably, it's discouraging me from using the app market on my phone when my bank is getting more money than the developers of the apps!

JuicyJesus

Rob_B wrote: »

What are the chances of Santander reversing these charges? Understandably, it's discouraging me from using the app market on my phone when my bank is getting more money than the developers of the apps!

Probably nil - these are standard charges.

There are cards which won't charge you a fee for this sort of transaction. HSBC spring to mind, they don't charge a fee on overseas debit card transactions, although they do apply an exchange rate loading like everyone else. Norwich and Peterborough and Metro Bank also spring to mind.

Rob_B_4

That's unfortunate - I'd be fine with it if I was actually abroad, or using a foreign company. It shouldn't be this way for purchases on a UK app store, with a UK phone on a UK network. It's pretty shady to be honest.

I don't think I'll move banks, I'll just have to be mindful of this sneaky charge when I make future purchases.

Thanks