Santander Visa Debit card

35483

Hi, I've recently opened a Santander 123 current account. And received my bank card yesterday. It's not embossed and the numbers are simply printed on.

Although it says Visa Debit, it also says Electronic Use Only on the back.

Personally, I couldn't care less about the appearance of the card, but I just wanted to make sure that this card was fully functional and the same as an embossed Visa Debit?

P.S. the card starts 475714.

Gromitt

It's not fully functional and some sites and places (such as Pay@Pump) may reject it.

sscott5581

This card is know as DEBIT MFC ONLINE. The embossed (offline) Visa Debit is known as DEBIT MFC and card starts 4547.

After 6 months of good use of the account Santander may upgrade you to the embossed Visa Debit.

I recently opended up a 123 account and have received the embossed Visa Debit.

However last year when I applied for an account I was only offered the online card. I asked in branch for an upgrade however was told it could only be upgraded after I started using the account.

Regards
Steven

ses6jwg

As has been said above really.

Your credit score was not deemed strong enough for a Visa Debit MFC and you have recieved an online card.

Not a huge problem, should work at most Pay@Pumps, just probably not on aeroplanes and trains.

You can request an upgrade after 3-6 months of account usage.

35483

oh i see! thanks MSEs

davethorp

q3estion-mark wrote: »

So why give a full account but a mickey-mouse card?

Most banks will offer either an online or offline card on their full accounts with the online card issued to people whose credit scores are lower. The online card works in nearly all the places the offline one does with the main difference being it has to phone home to authorise every single transaction made on it to check for available funds and deduct the transaction away from any available balance

The offline card may not phone home all the time if a transaction is below a merchant's floor limit although in many cases is can and still will phone home but this isn't guaranteed. The upshot of this is it will work in situations where it is not possible to phone home. The online one will not.

Santander are unusual in that they do not emboss the online card although this would only affect you if a merchant's terminal wasn't working and they had to revert to the old slide machine which takes a carbon imprint of your card's details and this is very very unlikely to happen (happened twice to me in about 15 years of using debit/credit cards and the most recent time they phoned up for an authorisation code anyway)

davethorp

11 full accounts? Jesus I thought I was bad with 6 accounts (3 of which are full)

There is a chance santander would upgrade you to the full card after six months though I have the online card on my 123 account and my everyday account with Santander and haven't run into a problem using it yet. I switched two lots of direct debits over from Lloyds TSB and Natwest to Santander and all but 3 came over without a hitch with the other 3 just needing a phone call or submitting details online to sort out

andrew-the-cat

I had an Electron card from Santander, it never worked on pay@pump. I now have a Visa Debit card from them but it's not embossed, and I'm scared to use it at pay@pump just in case it doesn't work. I changed to a real bank though and got a proper debit card which works on everything.

dr_adidas01

andrew-the-cat wrote: »

I had an Electron card from Santander, it never worked on pay@pump. I now have a Visa Debit card from them but it's not embossed, and I'm scared to use it at pay@pump just in case it doesn't work. I changed to a real bank though and got a proper debit card which works on everything.

Isn't Santander a real bank? If not what real bank have you changed to, perhaps we would all like to join this real bank?

davethorp

I didn't apply for an overdraft though my welcome letter said something like "an overdraft is normally available on this account but you dont qualify for one". Internet banking will not let me add one either, even selecting just £50 pops up an error that the limit requested is greater than the limit currently available on the account. I did get cheque books on both my accounts though which is a step better than my last full account with Lloyds TSB

My credit score isn't great though so being refused an overdraft isn't too surprising for me. It is improving though as up until recently I couldn't get a full account anywhere and now some banks are starting to offer them to me. We fund the account with about £2-3k a month although some of that is from money being moved into a savings account for bills and then back into the 123 account when the bill is due to be taken. We get about £9-10 cashback a month before the £2 is taken off.

If the online card doesn't work for you in places you need it to then I'd still keep the account for the cashback on bills if I were you. May as well take the free money especially as it would be substantial with the size of your bills and like I said they may consider upgrading the card after 6 months from what I've read. I've only had the account 3 months so can't speak from experience on that

You mention fuel in your post, you only get cashback on fuel through a 123 credit card which is another £2 a month although they sometimes have offers where it is waived in the first year if you already have a 123 account. I don't have a 123 credit card as they wont give me one, not that I would likely benefit from it enough to make the £2 fee worthwhile

davethorp

I applied for the credit card about a month after my 123 account was up and running. I got a letter in the post telling me to sod off (politely though) about a week later.

If you have access to internet banking, the credit card will show on there if approved. If not look out for a letter in the post either way. They didn't email me about the credit card but did about the current accounts and savings accounts we opened although thinking about it it may just be approved applications that they emailed us about as my other half applied for her own everyday account in addition to the joint 123 account we have and they approved the 123 account and my everyday account which we got emails about but declined her everyday account and I'm pretty sure they wrote to her rather than emailed