Credit Card Charges

jasperh

I have just received my statement from M&S and, as I pay off my bill every month by direct debit, I was surprised to see an item "Gambling Transactiion Fee" and also interest was charged.

Every week I enter my football pools with my card and also I put money into a lottery account periodically. M&S tell me that whenever the card is used to pay for pools, bookies or any other gambling account, these transactions will now be treated as cash withdrawals. Unfortunately no-one so far can tell me why? Obviously these are not cash transactions and it seems that the Card Company is using this as an excuse for a nice little earner.

The Pools Company tells me that they believe other card companies will follow. Is everyone else aware of this?

RTNI

jasperh wrote: »

I have just received my statement from M&S and, as I pay off my bill every month by direct debit, I was surprised to see an item "Gambling Transactiion Fee" and also interest was charged.

Every week I enter my football pools with my card and also I put money into a lottery account periodically. M&S tell me that whenever the card is used to pay for pools, bookies or any other gambling account, these transactions will now be treated as cash withdrawals. Unfortunately no-one so far can tell me why? Obviously these are not cash transactions and it seems that the Card Company is using this as an excuse for a nice little earner.

The Pools Company tells me that they believe other card companies will follow. Is everyone else aware of this?

This has become the norm now with CC companies, they will charge the amount to your CC along with a cash advance fee (or gambling advance in your case). The reason that this is classed as such is that you are gambling with money (cash) on the lottery or the pools etc, and you win cash in return, hence the CC compnay classes it as a cash advance on the CC.

Remember, interest is accruing on a daily basis for the cash advance; so when you have got your statement, there will be interest as you have said. If you want to pay it off in full, you will need to remeber that,

1) The time at which your statement was printed was around 7 days ago so there is 7 days of interest already accrued,

2) The time from when you send your payment to the CC company till they apply it to your account will be up to another 7 days.

So you will need to add on 14 (or so) days worth of interest, as if you don't then next month you will get a residual amount of interest.

LittleVoice

Try to pay using a debit card instead of a credit card if you want to avoid the interest and cash advance charges.

tom188

Obviously these are not cash transactions and it seems that the Card Company is using this as an excuse for a nice little earner.

But they are cash withdrawals. You are removing cash from the credit card and putting it in a gambling account. You are not purchasing anything. What is the difference between transferring money from your credit card to your gambling account to bet with and taking cash out of the ATM and going into your local branch of Ladbrokes with it?

ej3ae

I have stupidly made the same mistake of putting £5 for Ladbrokes on my M&S card (A mistake I will only make once!). Am I therefore correct in assuming that I will be charged the £2 (or £2.50 depending upon which version of the credit agreement you read) cash advance fee and 19% interest on the £5?

As I already have £1400 of purchases on there (which would be paid off before the £5 cash advance), and I don't want to pay those off in full until the end of my 0% period (I have the money to pay it off sitting in a high interest account), does anyone else think that I should allow the interest on the £5 cash advance to build up as the approx £1 of interest is far less than I can make on the money for purchases being kept in the high interest account?

I hope that all makes sense

d726t9

I've just been stung by this too. Opened an &more card for the 0% over 10 months, built up a balance of £1000 on it. Then made my yearly gamble on the Grand National (£20), got charged £2.50 for this and, worse than this, will have to pay off the £1000 balance before I can pay off the £20. I'm sure it's in the terms and conditions but have never come across this before with my Egg card.

I understand the reason behind it but believe you should be able to pay of your cash balance before having to pay off your 0%. Very frustrating.

Steve

colinbclark

I have just been stung by Goldfish for paying my Littlewoods Pools by credit card - something I have done for years.

When I queried it I was told that it was treated as a cash advance although they did not make a cash advance charge - only interest. This showed as an interest payment as the last entry on the statement.

I was told I had been informed of the change in one of the numerous bits of rubbish I receive with my statement (mostly sales).

How long before they class other types of transactions as cash advances?