Co-Op Basic Account - They gonna pay a reg bill and let me go overdrawn? Legal? ASAP

Hanky_Panky

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

My statement isn't wrong at all if the card is an electron card. Electron cards require authorising for every transaction. Store transaction could be declined, CPA would be either honoured or declined and a charge made. Clearly a profit mechanism for the bank, with no manual intervention required at all whatsoever.

They absolutely, definately do not. Believe that and you are setting yourself up for failure.

aldredd

Hanky_Panky wrote: »

They absolutely, definately do not. Believe that and you are setting yourself up for failure.

hmm, I think he's right - or certainly used to be the case.

Electron & SOLO were both cards which had to be sent through OLA (online authorisation)

back when I worked in store, if the card system was down, most cards would still go through ok without authorization, but we couldn't accept solo or electron. This was also why it was possible to give a solo card to younger people - I had one when I was maybe 14.

On our system there was a set of criteria as to whether a card was electronically authorized or automatically, such as payment amount. There was a nifty button on our tills though which allowed us to force any given card to be fully authorized.

Things could have changed, but even WIKI (yes I know, not the holy grail of sources, but it's all I can be bothered with) states they're OLA only.

Hanky_Panky

aldredd wrote: »

hmm, I think he's right - or certainly used to be the case.

Electron & SOLO were both cards which had to be sent through OLA (online authorisation)

back when I worked in store, if the card system was down, most cards would still go through ok without authorization, but we couldn't accept solo or electron. This was also why it was possible to give a solo card to younger people - I had one when I was maybe 14.

On our system there was a set of criteria as to whether a card was electronically authorized or automatically, such as payment amount. There was a nifty button on our tills though which allowed us to force any given card to be fully authorized.

Things could have changed, but even WIKI (yes I know, not the holy grail of sources, but it's all I can be bothered with) states they're OLA only.

It is a common belief but inaccurate. Even the banks themselves got caught out when Electron was first introduced and they introduced Electron only accounts that shouldn't have been able to go overdrawn but guees what - they did ! Caused no end of kerfuffle !

savagej

Abbey National used to bounce Electron transactions when the funds were not available as the cards used to work under the floor limit of most places that took Visa by swiping the card. British Rail has a particularly large problem as many people used the card on the train to pay and then had to deal with the transaction being bounced. So all staff were told to check the card was not Electron rather than trust the EFTPOS machine.

aldredd

Hanky_Panky wrote: »

It is a common belief but inaccurate. Even the banks themselves got caught out when Electron was first introduced and they introduced Electron only accounts that shouldn't have been able to go overdrawn but guees what - they did ! Caused no end of kerfuffle !

Not saying you're not right, but do you have anything to link to?

Everything I've seen suggests that this is certainly how it *should* be, whether that works in reality of course is a different matter.
It's also the reason why Electrons are not embossed with card number, but printed

Hanky_Panky

aldredd wrote: »

Not saying you're not right, but do you have anything to link to?

Everything I've seen suggests that this is certainly how it *should* be, whether that works in reality of course is a different matter.
It's also the reason why Electrons are not embossed with card number, but printed

No link no, just personal experience dealing with complaints relating to Abbey National funnily enough looking at savagej's comment above.

inmypocketnottheirs

Well then it would appear that the OLA is flawed then also..

Aldredd, I wholeheartedly agree that the US will account for the largest percentage of credit card fraud. That is exactly my point! So if chip and pin is the solution, why hasn't it been implemented in the US?

Hanky Panky, I fully accept total responsibility. It is how I live my life. But I know of one instance personally where a card was skimmed, in the end it was proven that the customer was innocent. The banks standard response was its the customer responsibility under chip and pin as it was impossible that the alleged transactions could have taken place without the card and pin present. Well guess what, it wasn't and was proven to be so.

Therefore I conclude that chip and pin isn't infallible, and the only reason why it was forced upon us was to shift the burden to the customer. It also appears that OLA isn't infallible either.

Gromitt

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

So if chip and pin is the solution, why hasn't it been implemented in the US?

For exactly the reason I stated above - cost to implement such a system. Think of replacing every card reader and CC/DC in the US with CNP.

MoneySaverNeil

The original point of this thread was a Bank insisting on making payment, even though customer told them not to.

As I understand it, using debit card or credit card to setup a regular payment schedule is a very bad idea. Why ?

All the control is said to be with the company. If they turn out to be a bunch of cowboys (oh, not in ripoff britain...) you can tell them to stop payment, yet they seem legally entitled to keep taking payments !

I once cancelled a credit card, only to be told I was still liable for any regular payments that came in, even though I'd CLOSED the credit card.

Safest system is probably Direct Debits, which you can control via online banking. I had a recent direct debit come into a Smile (co-op) account I didn't want to go out, so I cancelled it online (with result the payment shown on account that day wasn't even taken... I think you can cancel up to end of banking day and dd will not only be cancelled in future, but that payment will also not go out)

p.s. U.S banking system is primitive, and individual state based, so we have no lessons to learn from them... I think it's difficult to transfer funds from a bank in one state to a different bank in another state.

aldredd

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

Aldredd, I wholeheartedly agree that the US will account for the largest percentage of credit card fraud. That is exactly my point! So if chip and pin is the solution, why hasn't it been implemented in the US?

Your argument is flawed.
It's fairly clear that Chip&Pin has contributed to a SIGNIFICANT decrease in card fraud. Would you dispute this?

If this is correct, then why should it *matter* whether US have done it or not? They question should be why *haven't* they done it. Like I say, don't base whether or not to do something based on what US do/don't do - they still don't block IMEI numbers on stolen phones, for example, and they have lesser consumer protection laws.

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

Therefore I conclude that chip and pin isn't infallible, and the only reason why it was forced upon us was to shift the burden to the customer. It also appears that OLA isn't infallible either.

Who said it was infallible - no-one here has anyway.
And if it really was just to 'shift the burden to the customer', do you not think the US would have been the first in line?