Curve Card

DeeWestern

callum9999 wrote: »

No they haven't... I can't see why they'd specifically pay any bloggers - though it's certainly not in the thousands... I'd imagine any payments are via the "refer a friend" system, i.e. not specifically designed for bloggers. I also assume you have no evidence whatsoever that they've encouraged bloggers to promote Amex withdrawals. It certainly would make little sense given they don't advertise it themselves, it loses them money and they've put a cap on it.

Sure they have, they pay bloggers £10 for each card they get signed up. For 5000 cards referred that's £50k in tax free cash, equivalent to an annual salary of 80k :T

They've been very happy to work with the Head for Points blog, getting them early access to card to try out and have been quite happy with them pushing the fact that this card lets you get thousands of free points from ATMs. This funny comment is from the blog reviewing the card:

James wrote:

I was going to say, if you are interviewing them and tell them what you do, they might catch on that all of the sign ups are so people can rack up miles and that might put an end to this quickly.

Raffles wrote:

They know what I do. There are only taking 10,000 people in the first wave and a high % are from here.

Also, Curve have not published anything on Twitter about their renegotiation with Amex (despite lots of questions) but gave this blogger an update to post on Flyertalk in his personal name, reassuring people that all was fine.

If it was about recommending a card for travellers, one of the rivals that offers free foreign transactions (rather than Curve's 1% fee) would have been promoted! It's the same way you never see mention of the recurring 20% hotel cashback deals; it's the best deal you can find, but it replaces the referral funding that these businesses rely on.

callum9999

DeeWestern wrote: »

Ah I see what you meant - you just said "Well you could triple it to £18" so I assumed you meant taking more cash out. Be careful with the 'triple value' assumption - it's popular with the click-bait emails that scream "make XXX in cc points from this deal" but you see that actually the triple offers are so limited you are not really getting triple value from them (for example, they exclude discounts that are widely available, making you pay the full menu price or fully flexible rate). There's many people that would love to sell you their clubcard points at 2.9x value

It's not an assumption, there are various deals on the website that offer 3x the value with no catches. Eurotunnel is a particularly popular one. I regularly convert mine into airmiles which get me well over 3p value per point too.

DeeWestern wrote: »

Sure they have, they pay bloggers £10 for each card they get signed up. For 5000 cards referred that's £50k in tax free cash, equivalent to an annual salary of 80k :T

They've been very happy to work with the Head for Points blog, getting them early access to card to try out and have been quite happy with them pushing the fact that this card lets you get thousands of free points from ATMs. This funny comment is from the blog reviewing the card:


Also, Curve have not published anything on Twitter about their renegotiation with Amex (despite lots of questions) but gave this blogger an update to post on Flyertalk in his personal name, reassuring people that all was fine.

If it was about recommending a card for travellers, one of the rivals that offers free foreign transactions (rather than Curve's 1% fee) would have been promoted! It's the same way you never see mention of the recurring 20% hotel cashback deals; it's the best deal you can find, but it replaces the referral funding that these businesses rely on.

As I said, that's a refer a friend link that the bloggers are also using... I also highly doubt it's tax free.

They gave hundreds of people early access to try it out. Allowing them to state the ATM trick doesn't at all equate to encouraging them to promote it, which was your original claim.

So?

Have you ever read the blog before - you seem extraordinarily ignorant about it. They regularly promote the hotel cashback deals and regularly promote it's rivals with free foreign transactions. In fact, I can't remember the last time they promoted an affiliate link above a special offer, if they've ever even done so. In fact, they regularly specifically state that you shouldn't use their affiliate link and use the special offer instead.

DeeWestern

callum9999 wrote: »

They gave hundreds of people early access to try it out. Allowing them to state the ATM trick doesn't at all equate to encouraging them to promote it, which was your original claim.

Have you ever read the blog before - you seem extraordinarily ignorant about it. They regularly promote the hotel cashback deals and regularly promote it's rivals with free foreign transactions. In fact, I can't remember the last time they promoted an affiliate link above a special offer, if they've ever even done so. In fact, they regularly specifically state that you shouldn't use their affiliate link and use the special offer instead.

I said they were using bloggers to promote to personal users, rather than the 'business' users (wink wink) that are allowed to use it under Mastercard rules - check out the comments pages if you think it's being read by business people! These bloggers promote it to their users as a way to get points from Amex. As for the tax, I can't see a limited company number or VAT registration, so any payment from Curve wouldn't be automatically subject to tax.

I don't regularly read the site - too many kids makes travel too expensive! - but I have just had a look at the first article to see if I'd got it wrong.

It's all about flying Qatar, and it doesn't mention that if you go via a cashback site you'd earn £40 quid or whatever through them. Instead it has a link to the site with its own affiliate IDs. I've no problem with this, it's how the world works and you can't expect a site that's about exploiting every opportunity and loophole not to do so!

Cheekily, there's also links in the article to a page on British Airways about earning Qatar points. If you look at the link, it seems to be taking to you another page on the blog - but it actually takes you to doubleclick.net where a cookie is secretly set for British Airways sales!


I wonder if Raffles has been tipped off that these limits are just temporary whilst negotiations are underway with Amex? Amex can see from the FUP that they won't be exploited, and can sign a 5 year deal extension with Curve as they assume the FUP is static and unchangeable. Once the deal is done, Curve can go in and adjust the FUP (crucially keeping the T&Cs document the same) and Amex will be stuck with ecstatic personal users. Would certainly explain the radio silence.

I'm rushing off to work now, spent too long chatting to you - hope you have a good day

callum9999

DeeWestern wrote: »

I said they were using bloggers to promote to personal users, rather than the 'business' users (wink wink) that are allowed to use it under Mastercard rules - check out the comments pages if you think it's being read by business people! These bloggers promote it to their users as a way to get points from Amex. As for the tax, I can't see a limited company number or VAT registration, so any payment from Curve wouldn't be automatically subject to tax.

I don't regularly read the site - too many kids makes travel too expensive! - but I have just had a look at the first article to see if I'd got it wrong.

It's all about flying Qatar, and it doesn't mention that if you go via a cashback site you'd earn £40 quid or whatever through them. Instead it has a link to the site with its own affiliate IDs. I've no problem with this, it's how the world works and you can't expect a site that's about exploiting every opportunity and loophole not to do so!

Cheekily, there's also links in the article to a page on British Airways about earning Qatar points. If you look at the link, it seems to be taking to you another page on the blog - but it actually takes you to doubleclick.net where a cookie is secretly set for British Airways sales!


I wonder if Raffles has been tipped off that these limits are just temporary whilst negotiations are underway with Amex? Amex can see from the FUP that they won't be exploited, and can sign a 5 year deal extension with Curve as they assume the FUP is static and unchangeable. Once the deal is done, Curve can go in and adjust the FUP (crucially keeping the T&Cs document the same) and Amex will be stuck with ecstatic personal users. Would certainly explain the radio silence.

I'm rushing off to work now, spent too long chatting to you - hope you have a good day

Yes, and for the third time now there is a difference between turning a blind eye and actively encouraging it. He regularly talks about paying his large self-employed tax bills (which you'd know if you read the site!), so I'd imagine he'd include it as income.

Fair point - though he does regularly promote Topcashback - the last article promoting it being 4 days ago where he provides an affiliate link though states that if you already have an account you should make sure you refer someone else yourself instead of using his link.

It wouldn't explain the silence at all. Firstly, AMEX wouldn't be so stupid as to sign a 5 year deal based on an assumption, and as I said before, Curve Card loses money every time someone withdraws money from an AMEX in an ATM, so there's no logical reason why they'd be promoting it. And while you keep accusing them of secretly employing bloggers to do it for them, they categorically don't promote manufactured spending via AMEX in an ATM.

NFH

callum9999 wrote: »

And while you keep accusing them of secretly employing bloggers to do it for them, they categorically don't promote manufactured spending via AMEX in an ATM.

In its Fair Use Policy, Curve actually prohibits "cash recycling":

Furthermore any behaviour which Curve deems to be “cash recycling” whereby high volumes of cash are taken out of an ATM using a credit card and then used to repay the credit card in order to gain rewards on the funding card or Curve Rewards is not permitted. Such behaviour may result in your Curve account being blocked or cancelled.

planteria

interesting discussion. i quite like the idea of Curve, and i don't mind paying monthly fees if they stack up:)..
if, for example, i could in effect use Amex to pay for things at places that don't accept Amex then that would be a nice little perk, but i don't find many of those places and have Visa/Mastercard cashback-paying backups anyway.
with only a bit of effort cash could be withdrawn, but limited to £6/m in CC points? it's not much:think:
perhaps i'm missing something, and that Curve's own reward scheme is going to be appealing. for now, i'm feeling inclined to press on with Amex Cashback, Asda Money and TSB Debit as the three spending options in my wallet:coffee:.

NFH

I received my Curve card at the weekend. So far, I've attempted three transactions in this order:

1. Chip & PIN transaction - successful
2. Online payment of invoice - payment failed
3. Cash withdrawal of £200 - declined by card issuer

In all three cases, American Express authorised the transaction, as evidenced by the transactions appearing on Apple Pay (which includes authorised but subsequently abandoned transactions) and also by Amex confirming to me that they had authorised them but that the transaction had been cancelled by the merchant. I've e-mailed Curve support, but received no response, whereas usually they're very fast to respond.

eagle

NFH wrote: »

I received my Curve card at the weekend. So far, I've attempted three transactions in this order:

1. Chip & PIN transaction - successful
2. Online payment of invoice - payment failed
3. Cash withdrawal of £200 - declined by card issuer

In all three cases, American Express authorised the transaction, as evidenced by the transactions appearing on Apple Pay (which includes authorised but subsequently abandoned transactions) and also by Amex confirming to me that they had authorised them but that the transaction had been cancelled by the merchant. I've e-mailed Curve support, but received no response, whereas usually they're very fast to respond.

Thanks for posting that, NFH.

I also got my card at the weekend. A quick chip and PIN transaction for me worked no problem. Unfortunately, I also had an online transaction declined (with Amex as the loading card) which as you say appears authorised in Apple pay and online at Amex. I have also emailed Curve support for help but so far had only an automated response.

DeeWestern

callum9999 wrote: »

It wouldn't explain the silence at all

Oh, fair enough. If it's not due to a new deal that's about to be signed, and it's not down to him wanting people to keep their orders in to gain commission, do you have any thoughts as to why the blogger wouldn't have featured this major restriction in any of the 9 articles posted since the change?

callum9999 wrote: »

as I said before, Curve Card loses money every time someone withdraws money from an AMEX in an ATM, so there's no logical reason why they'd be promoting it. And while you keep accusing them of secretly employing bloggers to do it for them, they categorically don't promote manufactured spending via AMEX in an ATM.

It may not be logical, but I respectfully disagree - in my opinion Curve was promoting Amex ATM usage as a major feature - it must have been responsible for some sales at least!

The home page of their website was changed on Friday, but it said then:

Curve looks, feels and smells just like a normal bank card. But it isn't. Access all your cards and accounts with just one PIN, withdraw cash, use online and on the high street plus keep earning your rewards points. Use Contactless, Chip and Pin or magstripe. Curve also does things your old cards can't - such as avoiding cash advance fees when you withdraw cash with a credit card in the UK. Curve is a Prepaid MasterCard card and even makes Amex work everywhere MasterCard does.

And even today, if you click on the See Curve in Action link on the home page, you get this:

-Carry just one card
-Access super low foreign currency rates and no conversion fees
-See and label all transactions in real-time
-Use Amex everywhere
-No credit card ATM fees in your home country
-MasterCard and bank-level security

USE AMEX EVERYWHERE
When you set Curve to be your Amex card, it'll work everywhere across the world that MasterCard is accepted.

USE CREDIT CARDS FOR FREE AT ATMS
In your home country, you'll never be charged to withdraw cash from an ATM even if Curve is set to a credit card. You're free to use the account you need.

NFH

Curve seem to be on the ball with the declined transactions problem, which two of us reported above. They've just sent out an e-mail as follows:

Important Curve update: transaction declines

This weekend we identified a bug with one of our partner systems that is causing declines on CNP (Card Not Present) transactions - when you try and use Curve online or over the phone. This is also leading to declines on spend that totals more than £200 in a day across all types of transactions.

Our partner is working really hard to resolve the issue, but in the meantime, please do not use Curve for online or over the phone payments, and be aware that you may have issues with higher spend amounts.

We’ve been assured a fix will be in place by Wednesday 27th April but will keep you updated. Please be reassured that any declines that have not been immediately refunded will be queried with the merchant directly. The refund will then be automatically processed - please note this can take the merchant up to two weeks to complete.

We’re really sorry for any inconvenience caused - thank you for your patience as we work to resolve this.

Thanks,
Team Curve

It doesn't surprise me that things aren't going 100% smoothly with so many new customers suddenly joining. It's not so important whether something goes wrong but what they're doing about it. As long as they give frequent updates, I'm not too bothered about this.