Santander Visa Debit Card

paulmcerlean

unembossed santander cards are electron in disguise. a friend of my has just been issued with a new santander visa debit, start date 01/11 and it is fully embossed as per a normal full visa debit.

they are pulling your leg.

simrgrs

thought as much, ive no idea what they are playing at but theyre getting a letter of complaint now, had enough of the BS

paulmcerlean

they are the worst bank in the country. save the time writing a letter complaining, which will get you nowhere as they are clueless, and open a new bank account.

Try Lloyds or HSBC - and compare the service to that of Santander. You wont regret it.

simrgrs

I can understand why they are the worst, account only been open 23 days and had nothing but grief from them, had to chase and monitor the application and account setup every step of the way. Letter has gone in the post directed to the person who opened my account who to be fair on her has been good and done her best to help throughout. I know it will get me nowhere though so as soon as my salary goes in the account, its getting moved to the Natwest account and i'll begin the job of phoning each company to get the direct debits back to Natwest also. Suddenly Natwest dont seem so bad after all!

Toe-Jam

paulmcerlean wrote: »

unembossed santander cards are electron in disguise. a friend of my has just been issued with a new santander visa debit, start date 01/11 and it is fully embossed as per a normal full visa debit.

they are pulling your leg.

They are not electrons in disguise. Electrons don't work at pay@pump or at train ticketing booths or on planes, the 4757 unembossed visa debit works in all those places, and will also let you go overdrawn if you don't have enough money in your account.

I used mine last month and accidently went into the red by £2.50, they charged me £30. and they are increasing their bank charges in month, so the same thing will cost £35

Toe-Jam

jnm21 wrote: »

Yep, just noticed today that mine (1st card, issued Sept) says electronic only on the back. Does this mean I can only use it as chip & pin (i.e. B&Ms asked me to sign to use my CC, but probably did the other bit electronically)?

PS They matched my near 2 grand overdraft, so I would guess I met their 'criteria'.

no it doesn't. It means the card can't be "zipzapped" i.e put between 2 pieces of paper and pressed so the card number is transferred onto the paper, then the amount written on the paper by hand and posted off to the bank for payment whether you have the funds or not. And i havn't seen that done since the days of Switch cards. if the electronic link is down these days , there is a telephone number they can call to get the authorisation and they just key it into the till instead.

When the Visa link went down in December all visa cards were being declined regardless of them being on or off-line, so I don't see what the big fuss is about online/off-line cards.

thatsean

I'll second this, I recently moved over to Santander and was issued an Electron. I asked for a Visa Debit and was issued one of these unembossed cards. I've bought train tickets with it, used it on a ferry and all over Europe - and it works just fine. What all this crying is about is beyond me - are people just looking for an excuse to be annoyed?

I'm guessing that Santander have a passmark for the full account (I have the Premium one), and then another for a full feature debit, with a lower for Electron/Visa Debit unembossed.

It works, get over it, or move banks. Either way, crying about it on here won't change what's in your wallet - you will.

simrgrs

the "crying" is about the lack of communication form Santander that there was an issue!! I wouldnt have gone ahead with the account if i'd known i'd be getting this mickey mouse plastic!

savagej

What diferrence does an embossed card make when we will all be paying by swiping over mobile phone over a card reader (google unembossed visa I think you will be surprised and that many of the things in this theard should taken with a with a pinch of salt).

Toe-Jam

savagej wrote: »

What diferrence does an embossed card make when we will all be paying by swiping over mobile phone over a card reader (google unembossed visa I think you will be surprised and that many of the things in this theard should taken with a with a pinch of salt).

Paywave was introduced in 2007 and so far only 1 bank has it and a handful of retailers use it, so I think you might be a bit optimistic with the Magic Mobile set up in the near future:D