Be careful joining Lottoland with a Credit Card

Pete-B

I recently joined Lottoland and credited £10 to try them out using my VISA Credit Card.

They offered a number of Card handler options, such as Visa, Mastercard and a few others.

No mention was made about any charges, and I got no warnings. However, my Card Issuer charged me a £3 handling fee and cash interest from day 1, since unbeknown to me Lottoland put this through as a Cash Advance.

I believe there should be a warning on their web wiste, and I would have happily used a debit card had I known.

Lottoland were pretty unsympathetic when I complained.

As I pay in full each month by Direct Debit I don't normally pay any interest or charges, and as this happened to be in the first couple of days after a statement was issued, if I hadn't acted quickly and put another payment through to cover this and any likely interest, it could have caused me to pay a disproportionate amount of interest.

Not much in the overall scheme of things, but annoying, and in my view plain wrong! I am no longer a member!

Drp8713

Its not the retailer's fault, they dont know your credit card terms and conditions.

All credit cards I am aware of treat gambling transactions as a cash advance.

Pete-B

But surely they know if their system is putting through a purchase or cash advance

Drp8713

No, its the card issuer that decides how to treat transactions.

The company doesnt know, nor do they know whether you know you will be charged the fee. You could know about it and still want to gamble.

[Deleted User]

Drp is spot on.

You can't base your shopping and leisure destinations on the basis of your credit card t&cs. Well you can, but it would be clinically insane.

Futuristic

Don't the more popular lottery companies like Health/National etc block credit cards being used in the first place?

Pete-B

National Lottery specifically only allow debit cards.

I've occasionally come across sites before that have warned the card issuer might charge, but this is the first time I've been caught out this way since my first Barclaycard in 1974!

chuckley

I thought all credit cards treated lottery as cash advances?!. well in my 'welcome packs' they've always made it clear...

not that i play it mind...

[Deleted User]

Just been on LottoLand website, says join for a free lotto line bet. I join but there is no option of a free lotto bet. I check the help section and it says to click on the free line link on the landing page, no link at all.

What b*ll*cks. Logged out and won't be bothering again.

Betting shops offer bets on various lotto outcomes, and you can stake what you like, not just LottoLand's £2 minimum.

SnowTiger

Deleted_User wrote: »

Just been on LottoLand website, says join for a free lotto line bet. I join but there is no option of a free lotto bet. I check the help section and it says to click on the free line link on the landing page, no link at all.

What b*ll*cks. Logged out and won't be bothering again.

Betting shops offer bets on various lotto outcomes, and you can stake what you like, not just LottoLand's £2 minimum.

It worked for me. I have a free ticket sat in the My tickets area.

grumbler

Drp8713 wrote: »

No, its the card issuer that decides how to treat transactions.

The card issuer can make decision only based on the description/classification given by the retailer.

Some gambling sites do warn that the CC provider may charge extra.