Curve Card

stevenhp1987

SnowTiger wrote: »

Take the recent Visa outage as an example. Purchases made with a Curve card (Mastercard) failed if the underlying card was Visa.

During the Visa outage I had several payments go through on my Curve without them charging my underlying Visa card straight away (I had 0 rejected). They were all charged to my Visa card a day or two later.

It seems they did let some customers pay and take the funds later!

WillPS

SnowTiger wrote: »

I think it's the other way around.

Why? Because a transaction with a Curve card will fail if the transaction with the underlying card fails.

Take the recent Visa outage as an example. Purchases made with a Curve card (Mastercard) failed if the underlying card was Visa.



It's probably not possible to change the MCC on-the-fly.



Going back to the old type of card (not debt) Curve previously used and not allowing punters to make cash withdrawals might placate Tesco Bank.

I think the problem is that Curve allows a credit card to be used like a debit card. Perhaps you aren't aware of the ramifications of that, but me and (presumably) lots of other Curve customers are. :rotfl:

If they don't want to allow Curve to be used that's one issue - they could just decline those transactions. Landing customers with huge fees which they then refuse to refund even if the transaction itself is refunded is quite another - especially when absolutely no notice had been provided.

dreamacademy

Hi,

Below is a mail I recieved yesterday regarding the situation as it stands at the moment.
Hopefully common sense will prevail and people will soo be able to link their Tesco card without fear of charges.


Hi

We are getting in touch as you currently have a Tesco Credit Card as a verified payment method on Curve.

We are aware that Tesco Bank recently updated their terms of service and notified customers that they will now charge a 3.99% cash advance fee for transactions which they class as a payment to a prepaid or virtual card.

Your Curve card is a debit card and should not incur cash advance fees. We have received reports from multiple customers that they are being charged. We were very disappointed to learn about this and are investigating with Tesco and Mastercard as well as the relevant payments regulators as we believe this to be anti-competitive.

Please note that this is Tesco Bank-specific and does not apply to any other debit or credit cards.

While we investigate this issue, we recommend that you:
• Get in touch with Tesco to dispute this issue and request a refund - your card is a debit card and transactions should not attract any additional fees from Tesco Bank.
• Use another underlying payment card with your Curve instead of a Tesco card until this is rectified. We will not be able to reimburse you for fees incurred, as this is coming from Tesco Bank and we cannot refund fees wrongly charged by another bank.

We will update you as soon as we have any further information. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for being a loyal Curve customer. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Best Wishes - Team Curve

[Deleted User]

Interesting letter from Curve - they have to dispute it, even if it's through one of their employees using it and going to FOS, as if Tesco are allowed to continue, it's the start of a slippery slope.

For what it's worth, I have some sympathy with Tesco - but if they're going to charge Curve, they should also charge PayPal, eBay & Amazon who work on a similar basis. Not quite understanding why they feel Curve is so different (clearly it's open to abuse more than the others, but just kick the abusing customers out of the bank!).

My limit is £50k too. I've nearly used it all, I might just let some transactions drop off rather than dare to request an increase... I've already had the Compliance Team kicking off :rotfl:

stevenhp1987 wrote: »

During the Visa outage I had several payments go through on my Curve without them charging my underlying Visa card straight away (I had 0 rejected). They were all charged to my Visa card a day or two later.

It seems they did let some customers pay and take the funds later!

Same for me, I didn't even realise the Visa outage at the time as my Curve Mastercard was still being accepted.

Edit: Also Monzo have suspended my ability to use Apple Pay.... not told me why, it just doesn't work anymore..... Presumably has something to do with my ability to use Skybet, my overdraft and Curve to deposit into SB then withdraw to current a/c.......:rotfl:

SnowTiger

Somerset_La_La_La wrote: »

I didn't even realise the Visa outage at the time as my Curve Mastercard was still being accepted.

On the day in question I made several successful purchases using my Nationwide Visa credit card directly.

Later in the day my Curve card, which was imitating my Nationwide Visa credit card, failed several times. The problems continued in to the following day, even though Nationwide was reporting that everything was okay. Curve gave (IIRC) a pre-auth failure message.

darren72

Somerset_La_La_La wrote: »

My limit is £50k too. I've nearly used it all, I might just let some transactions drop off rather than dare to request an increase... I've already had the Compliance Team kicking off :rotfl:

I've already requested an increase but told that this is the maximum limit currently available on the Curve card.

Out of interest, why did the Compliance Team kick off ? - I've had no contact from them myself.

Anthorn

scragend wrote: »

Tesco are making a very ham-fisted attempt at defending themselves on Twitter. Apparently Curve counts as a cash transaction but PayPal doesn't, because PayPal is a "payment intermediary" whereas with Curve "money is transferred from your credit card account to your Curve card prior to being passed from Curve to the retailer".

Is this not the very definition of an intermediary?!

EDIT: I hadn't read the latest posts on the Tesco community thread when I posted the above message. It seems they are trying to make the same totally incoherent defence on there as well.

Not exactly the same as PayPal:

We authorise payment for a product or service and we pay it through PayPal mainly using PayPal as a third-party payment processor.

If we load a pre-paid card using a credit card that's most definitely a cash transaction. However I'm well informed about pre-paid cards or I like to think so and I don't know of any pre-paid cards which accept loading with a credit card. We could circumvent that cash transaction by loading it at a Paypoint where the loading was designated as a pirchase. However it now appears that hole has now been closed and it now has to be cash:
https://www.paypoint.com/en-gb/consumers/service-directory#prepaid-cards

The question is whether Curve is a prepaid card or a third-party payment processor. I think that most people who know how Curve works will agree that Curve is a third-party payment processor but Tesco Bank thinks different and we are at the mercy of Tesco Bank. They obviously think that Curve is loaded and then Curve is used as a pre-paid card to pay for the purchase and that is exactly how it works.

The problem now is that if other CC issuers follow suit it will likely go a long way towards killing off Curve at least for CC usage. Personally if this happens I will cease my use of Curve because I only have one bank debit card and I might as well just use that debit card.

[Deleted User]

SnowTiger wrote: »

On the day in question I made several successful purchases using my Nationwide Visa credit card directly.

Later in the day my Curve card, which was imitating my Nationwide Visa credit card, failed several times. The problems continued in to the following day, even though Nationwide was reporting that everything was okay. Curve gave (IIRC) a pre-auth failure message.

Interesting, maybe it's due to Curve's internal risk limits? As obviously they are liable to chargebacks etc from the main banks, so effectively credit check or risk assess everyone. Is your spending limit 50k? I'd have thought anyone at 50k was 'trusted' even when pre-auth fails, although maybe the transaction type/amount etc comes into it (mine were several < £10 at a pub).

There's a page on their FAQ's which is something along the lines of "I can't pay my negative balance" so presumably it happens fairly frequently!!

darren72 wrote: »

I've already requested an increase but told that this is the maximum limit currently available on the Curve card.

Out of interest, why did the Compliance Team kick off ? - I've had no contact from them myself.

Ah that's a shame. As most of my spend was racked up after January, I'll be waiting a good 6 months then!

"Was this transaction business spend?", was that transaction business spend, tell us more about your employment situation etc etc.

Ironically, they've not had anything to say about Monzo topups, ATM withdrawals or anything else that is closer to cash recycling than the ones they queried!!!

I'm getting a mortage soon (FTB) so all my credit cards are going to be paid down to 0 balance and no use of Curve for ATM, investments etc, don't want any of it coming back to haunt me - better to play it safe for a few months and miss out on my freebies!

SnowTiger

Somerset_La_La_La wrote: »

Interesting, maybe it's due to Curve's internal risk limits? As obviously they are liable to chargebacks etc from the main banks, so effectively credit check or risk assess everyone. Is your spending limit 50k? I'd have thought anyone at 50k was 'trusted' even when pre-auth fails, although maybe the transaction type/amount etc comes into it (mine were several < £10 at a pub).

There's a page on their FAQ's which is something along the lines of "I can't pay my negative balance" so presumably it happens fairly frequently!!

My limit is £50,000, so lack of trust probably isn't an issue. :rotfl:

What you and others are suggesting is that Curve fronts payments, then charges the underlying card later - perhaps only a very short time later; and there's a possibility that a request for payment from the underlying card may be refused.

Isn't that lending? Curve doesn't have a Consumer Credit Licence and they don't perform credit checks on punters.

According to Curve's T&Cs, which we've all read and digested of course:

1.3. How the Curve Card works

[...]

1.3.4. If the default Payment Card account does not have sufficient funds in it to complete the transaction the transaction will be declined. When you use the Curve Card, you purchase e-money for the value of the transaction using your default Payment Card and that e-money is then immediately used to pay the retailer or cash withdrawal provider, as the case may be. Such e-money is purchased and consecutively loaded onto the e-money account linked to your Curve Card and then spent or withdrawn.

It appears that Curve is a prepayment card and Tesco Bank, sadly, has a point.

The_Urbanite

SnowTiger wrote: »

I think the problem is that Curve allows a credit card to be used like a debit card. Perhaps you aren't aware of the ramifications of that, but me and (presumably) lots of other Curve customers are. :rotfl:

It took me 11 whole weeks to max Curve Debit out. However I'm going to be a good sport and leave it in the drawer til next year with no fuss