Visa Debit Card For Currency Purchase

Hypothetical_2

It's probably already been mentioned on here but I was surprised to learn that I had been charged £4.50 by NATWEST for buying £378.40 of currency from First Choice using a Visa Debit card.

If I had been aware of this scam I would have withdrawn cash and paid for the currency in that way. Having had a look through correspondence associated with the card when it was issued by the bank, there isn't a reference to such potential charges. Neither did First Choice have the sense to either place a note at their exchange kiosk to warn of potential charges or instruct staff to issue a verbal caution when a customer intends to use a Visa Debit card to buy currency.

Anyway, I went along to my branch of NATWEST and expressed my displeasure and duly had the £4.50 refunded.

It beggars belief that bank policy makers can actually sleep at night. It seems that they haven't improved their behaviour much in the 2000 years since Jesus overturned the tables of the money lenders.

FullTimeBadMan

nat west.com/personal/current-accounts/g4/cards/abroad.ashx

Took two seconds to Google... hardly a scam. :S Try reading your Ts&Cs.

ashleypride

Not a scam, Visa charges for currency conversion, most banks pass on the charge to the customer. The charge will in the T&Cs, it's not upto First Choice to tell you what your bank will charge you.

dunstonh

Echoing above. No scam here.

It beggars belief that people who dont know what they are doing call scam when its their own fault

Hypothetical_2

Since (I am guessing) the vast majority of people are likely to be unaware that certain payments by debit card in the UK are chargeable, it would make total sense for First Choice to at least have an advisory notice on view at their exchange kiosks.

As to the banks, just to place a clause in their T&C's doesn't necessarily make a policy reasonable....perhaps just legal.

Do I sense three posters in succession with sympathies for the banks? It's they who have bankrupted the planet by their excessive greed and lack of any form of integrity and morality, not I.

dunstonh

Do I sense three posters in succession with sympathies for the banks? It's they who have bankrupted the planet by their excessive greed and lack of any form of integrity and morality, not I.

What about consumer greed and rubbish politicians? Didn't they have anything to do with it? Shall we also slag off the motor industry as they needed bailouts. How about every nationalised industry in the past.

Would you also like to explain how retail banks have bankrupted the planet when it is investment banks that face the greatest responsibility in that respect?

Banks do a lot wrong but it is daft to blame them for everything or say they are wrong when they are not. Where they have done wrong then they should be criticised and brought to task. However, where they have done no wrong, then they should not be slagged off just because they are a bank. It's not about having sympathies for the banks. It's about having common sense.

Hypothetical_2

You refer to consumer greed, the motor industry and nationalised industries as though these have in some way contributed to the current crisis. May I respectfully suggest that you are confusing cause and effect. 100+% mortgages and heavy lending by financial institutions encourage and facilitate consumer greed, and as judges are stressing more and more, vulnerable people need to be protected from themselves. The banks have offered big loans to those who they know cannot afford them (as is evidenced by the banks permitting borrowers to self certify income) and have then passed on these toxic loans under various guises to pension funds and goodness knows where else. It's a global disgrace.

You draw a differentiation between the retail arms and investment arms of banks! Of course they are completely separate....that's why the banks are resisting government moves to ring fence the retail arms. The banks have clearly been using retail banking resources to help fund crazy investments....but I'm sure you know all about that already!

Hypothetical_2

Just for the record, why do banks make a charge for this 'service'?

All the work has already been done by the organisation effecting the supply. They have quoted a rate of exchange and have agreed a set fee for a specific number of Iotas.

Why is this any different from paying for a supermarket shop or a car on a debit card??

ashleypride

Hypothetical wrote: »

Just for the record, why do banks make a charge for this 'service'?

Because Visa are charging them for the service.

Hypothetical_2

But what are Visa actually doing!? Why does this particular 'service' attract a premium?? Are you suggesting that First Choice and others are consuming a Visa service to calculate exchange rates....in which case they most certainly should pre warn customers using debit cards that they may be charged.

dunstonh

You refer to consumer greed, the motor industry and nationalised industries as though these have in some way contributed to the current crisis.

Consumer greed certainly contributed. Motor industry got it wrong. Nationalised industries referred more to previous financial crisis .

Just for the record, why do banks make a charge for this 'service'?

To cover the charge that VISA make to them.

Why is this any different from paying for a supermarket shop or a car on a debit card??

Because VISA do not charge in the same way for those.