Annoying.

DebsSpends

What gets to me about credit cards, for example mine is a Mint, is that they impose a Credit Limit - which is fair enough, but they allow you to exceed it then charge you £12.

I was a little lax on my payments and a transaction went through taking me over the limit and this happened to me. The next thing I get a letter explaining I have been charged.

How come they dont just decline the purchase which would take you over the limit?

I see it as underhanded and sly business practice.

Paul_Herring

Alternatively you could stop sailing so close to the limit so you don't go over it to begin with...

Essex22011

You allow yourself to go over the credit limit, you have to be responsible with your spending or stop using a credit card!

Better_Off_1983

You are probably not accounting for the interest that goes on the account when the statement is made up.

I am forever advising customers (in my line of work) about leaving a certain amount available on a particular day of the month to allow for the interest, if not a £12.00 charge is incurred.

aleph_0

Conversely, if they declined a transaction, you would have people complaining that a transaction was declined, even though the card company could have allowed the transaction and charged the fee. They've trusted you to know what you are doing, and so have assumed you've made a rational decision to go over the limit (either because of an emergency, or because you know of a transaction currently impacting the available credit, but actually didn't go through and will drop off), rather than decline the transaction.

Alternatively, if you recently had a lingering transaction that had requested authorisation, but didn't actually go through, they would end up rejecting a transaction that could have actually taken place. Or, if the transaction was offline, they wouldn't be able to decline it anyway.

pelirocco

DebsSpends wrote: »

What gets to me about credit cards, for example mine is a Mint, is that they impose a Credit Limit - which is fair enough, but they allow you to exceed it then charge you £12.

I was a little lax on my payments and a transaction went through taking me over the limit and this happened to me. The next thing I get a letter explaining I have been charged.

How come they dont just decline the purchase which would take you over the limit?

I see it as underhanded and sly business practice.

I would assume its because they arent on real time transactions , it can take a while for transactions to hit your account, therefore if you have used your card more then once in a short space of time there wont have been time for your balance to update .

Besides , you should always know what your balance should be

DebsSpends

Well - I know I should take more care - but I still think they should decline. They can do it if they want - it is not a technical issue.

pelirocco

DebsSpends wrote: »

Well - I know I should take more care - but I still think they should decline. They can do it if they want - it is not a technical issue.

Are you sure of that ? I know on my business bank if i make a card payment it doesnt show straight away ,nor does the available balance change . That is why I do a cashflow forecast ........in fact I have just completed a forecast up until the the middle of January

I do the same for my private account , and credit card account

Gromitt

DebsSpends wrote: »

Well - I know I should take more care - but I still think they should decline. They can do it if they want - it is not a technical issue.

Some cards do decline, but still charge the £12 fee for refusing the payment. There are complaints on this board from people who have spent 2 hours in a supermarket, get through the checkout and got the card declined. I believe a change of card to one which allowed them to go over their limit came shortly afterwards!

Some other problem is that it could take several days for the transaction to be posted to your account, and once the transaction is authorised, you can't stop it. You could block future transactions if the amount of authorised payments go over your credit limit, but that could cause other problems.

cajef

DebsSpends wrote: »

They can do it if they want - it is not a technical issue.

Actually you are right it is not a technical issue it is a user issue, it is easy enough to check your account especially when you know you are nearing your limit.

dresdendave

DebsSpends wrote: »

Well - I know I should take more care - but I still think they should decline. They can do it if they want - it is not a technical issue.

If you were stranded somewhere and needed to buy a train ticket or pay a car repair bill (for example) to get yourself home, would you be pleased if your CC was declined because the transaction would put you a couple of quid over your limit?