3.50GBP charge on a 10GBP cash withdrawal with Barclaycard

khendry · 25 May 2011 at 10:07AM

Hi there,

I don't use my Barclaycard very often, only to rent cars in Europe. In preparation for such a trip, I took the card over to a local Natwest cash point to check my PIN mumber by withdrawing 10GBP.

On Barclaycard's online control panel monstrosity I was surprised to see a:
Cr Chq/Cash Adv Fee CS charge for 2.50GBP
Cr Cash Interest CS for 1GBP (even though I have specified a direct debit to clear any debt ASAP)

Is this crookery normal? An insane 35% charge on a cash withdrawal?

Tixy · 25 May 2011 at 10:10AM

Totally normal

Getting cash out of a credit card is always a very expensive option.
There is always a cash advance fee which will be detailed in your terms & conditions.
Also detailed in your T&C is that cash withdrawals are charged interest from the date of the transaction, you do not get the up to 56day interest free credit that is available for purchases.
So you will be charged interest from the date of your withdrawal to the date of the next direct debit payment when your balance is paid off.

khendry · 25 May 2011 at 10:26AM

Tixy wrote: »

Totally normal
So you will be charged interest from the date of your withdrawal to the date of the next direct debit payment when your balance is paid off.

So there will there be further interest charges? So it only gets cleared after a month (tbh, I am not sure when/how it gets cleared), what extra charges can I look forward to?

I wonder if I can tell them to clear it RIGHT NOW in order to avoid further charges IIUC?

loopy.magic · 25 May 2011 at 10:27AM

As Tixy says, this is totally normal. Using your credit card for cash withdrawals is one of the most expensive things you can do with it, plus normally the interest rate for cash withdrawals is higher then your normal interest rate.

rb10 · 25 May 2011 at 10:28AM

You'll find that there are similar charges for using your card in Europe.

Barclaycard will add a fee and a loading to the exchange rate for all transactions that you do.

You may be better off getting a Halifax Clarity card. That gives free ATM withdrawals and free overseas transactions.

Tixy · 25 May 2011 at 10:30AM

Your DD will be set up to pay once a month so many days after the statement date.
You can make a manual payment whenever you like to your account. So if its still a while until the DD then you could certainly make a payment before then to clear the account and reduce the interest charge. Although on £10 the interest charge is not going to be very large even if it waits until the DD.
Presumably your DD is set to pay off the balance in full each month?

khendry · 25 May 2011 at 10:36AM

rb10 wrote: »

You'll find that there are similar charges for using your card in Europe.

Barclaycard will add a fee and a loading to the exchange rate for all transactions that you do.

You may be better off getting a Halifax Clarity card. That gives free ATM withdrawals and free overseas transactions.

I don't plan to use the Barclaycard for withdrawing cash abroad, though that's good advice. Many thanks,

khendry · 25 May 2011 at 10:37AM

Tixy wrote: »

Presumably your DD is set to pay off the balance in full each month?

That's right. Might take me too long to figure out how to do it manually, so I might ride this one out and put it down to experience. Luckily it wasn't 100GBP I guess.

Thank you!

YorkshireBoy · 25 May 2011 at 10:51AM

khendry wrote: »

That's right. Might take me too long to figure out how to do it manually, so I might ride this one out and put it down to experience. Luckily it wasn't 100GBP I guess.

To save you coming back next month to say "what's this extra £1 for?"...

The £1 you mention above is Barclaycard's 'minimum interest charge' (because any interest less than £1 gets rounded up to £1).

Even paying your next statement in full won't stop a £1 residual interest charge on the statement after.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case · 25 May 2011 at 10:55AM

khendry wrote: »

Hi there,

I don't use my Barclaycard very often, only to rent cars in Europe. In preparation for such a trip, I took the card over to a local Natwest cash point to check my PIN mumber by withdrawing 10GBP.

On Barclaycard's online control panel monstrosity I was surprised to see a:
Cr Chq/Cash Adv Fee CS charge for 2.50GBP
Cr Cash Interest CS for 1GBP (even though I have specified a direct debit to clear any debt ASAP)

Is this crookery normal? An insane 35% charge on a cash withdrawal?

For future reference you could perform some other action rather than withdrawing cash if you just want to verify your PIN.

dresdendave · 25 May 2011 at 9:46PM

I've never used a CC to withdraw cash but I assume the ATM procedure is the same as a debit card. So if you purely want to check your PIN, you would input your PIN to bring up the transaction option menu. Once the menu appears you know your PIN is correct. At that point select cancel and your card would be returned to you.