Santander Visa Debit Card

Toe-Jam

izools wrote: »

"slidey thing".

its called a Zipzap machine:D and i havn't seen one of those used in over 10 years

and the unembossed visa debit card with Santander will allow you to go overdrawn. Even though they are authorising every single transaction they still allow them through if there's not enough money.

So it kind of defeats the purpose of the all auth card.

if you have exactly £10 in your account and buy somthing at £10, you'll go overdrawn. because they take the security auth amount out of your balance aswell. And it will allow transations taking you overdrawn less than £10 through.

And then charge you £35 for it.

izools

Toe-Jam wrote: »

its called a Zipzap machine:D

and the unembossed visa debit card with Santander will allow you to go overdrawn. Even though they are authorising every single transaction they still allow them through if there's not enough money.

So it kind of defeats the purpose of the all auth card.

Well not really because it is up to the bank whether or not to honour an unauthorized overdraft request.

If you attempt to make a purchase on a full-auth visa debit card, or an offline card but in an online terminal, that will take your account overdrawn or over an agreed limit, the bank - as per the terms of the accounts - see this as you formally requesting an unarranged overdraft.

They then provide you with an unarranged overdraft, or increase the limit on your existing overdraft, and charge you for the privilege, again as per the terms on the account.

The point of the unembossed cards, is zipzap machines don't give the bank a chance to decide whether they want to honour the customer's request for unarranged borrowing or decline the transaction.

maddocks_2

savagej wrote: »

Good point, it really should be the same all over. Technically if it is a card with what is called an X2X code, that means full authorisation then if it cant be authorised it should be declined. I think the issue is to do with what equipment the retailer has for accepting the card and if it is new enough to look for these codes.

In my opinion they should not have rolled out full auth cards until they had upgraded all terminals to be able to look for authorisation, as people are not being told by their banks they could be declined on a train, plane etc. and I have not been in the situation but what do you do. You have what you think is a valid payment method, the conductor or machine wont take it, do they call the Police and call you a fare dodger?

Luckily, I didn't live in a penalty fare zone when this happened. So I'd get bumped off the train at the next, larger stop where they did have a ticket booth to buy from which accepted my card. I'd then have to wait 30mins for the next train which invariably, would make me late unless I left home with several hours to spare.

Very glad that this will no longer be the case!

savagej

Plus, all zip-zap (imprinter) card transactions must now be authorised 100%, no matter what type of card it is before the bank has to acknowledge it. So where is the trust there, unembossed cards are not all about lack of trust. As OP's have pointed out the new Santander unemobssed Visa Debit, has a Visa Debit AID, and will let the customer go overdrawn and the card works at [EMAIL="Pay@Pump"]Pay@Pump[/EMAIL] Machines and on Planes, Trains, in Taxis etc. So if they mean't to stop people going overdrawn they have done a bad job of it.

So in conclusion you can use the unembossed card for transactions that require 100% authorisation but don't get authorised but an imprint of an embossed card, not authorised, is practically useless to the retailer if they took it not realising it could be returned should the bank wish as the rules were not followed.

Toe-Jam

izools wrote: »

The point of the unembossed cards, is zipzap machines don't give the bank a chance to decide whether they want to honour the customer's request for unarranged borrowing or decline the transaction.

In 1995 that might have been the case. But manual imprinters require telephone authorisation now or the voucher does not have to be honoured by the receiving bank.

gsmmad

i havent read this thread at all, however:

The embossed debit card is given to those who have good credit history.
Anyone who doesn't qualify for this but has a current account will get the black non embossed visa card. The black embossed debit card replaced the old solo cards. They use to have the DEBIT MFC cards for people with good history, then the ELECTRON ONLINE MFC for people with not so good history. Now the electron is replaced by the DEBIT ONLINE MFC.

The branch cannot do much about this, its your credit scoring which bounds you to that card. The cards both function the same, you can do exactly the same transactions on both cards, as they are both VISA debit cards.

mrsscrowther

I have a new visa debit card from Santander, used to have an electron. It is not a full multiuse card though as all the places that didn't accept visa electron, i.e. Tesco, still don't. I am disappointed but its my own fault I know as I was stupid with money in my younger years! My husband's card however is fully embossed!

izools

Toe-Jam wrote: »

In 1995 that might have been the case. But manual imprinters require telephone authorisation now or the voucher does not have to be honoured by the receiving bank.

Ah OK.

Its interesting you say that as my first job was with DSG (Dixons) in the high street and one day the payment network went down.

We used the zipzap machines and didn't authorise the transactions over the phone.

This was in 2001/2002.

Still a heck of a long time ago so I guess things have changed somewhat Thanks for the heads up

savagej wrote:

So if they mean't to stop people going overdrawn they have done a bad job of it.

Santander do a bad job of something? You can't be serious :rotfl:

Toe-Jam

Santander inform me that they no longer issue unembossed visa debit card.

15/06/2011
Banking and saving enquiries
Thanks for your email. As advised, we do not issue unembossed cards anymore.
If you are concerned you have previously received a card with no embossing on it and you would like it reissued, please let us know and we would be happy to arrange this for you.
Regards, Santander cusotmer services

So i asked them to replace my unembossed one. The new one has been ordered. I'm fully expecting it to be unembossed when it arrives but I will let you know what happens.

pmduk

Unfortunately, you have to rememenber that most things Santander staff tell you is not worth the air they breathe. (and that's the polite version of what I really wanted to say.)