Cashback card that blocks overspending...

Lum

...or at least gives you a chance to fix it before charging an overlimit fee.

I have an Asda cashback card that I lowered the limit to £800 on as this is my budget for non-fixed bills, food and luxuries.

Unfortunately it seems the card makes no effort to stop you overspending, just blindly accepts everything and then slaps you with a £12 fee. You don't even get the thing where if you go over you have until the end of the day to sort it, if you send them money (or get a refund) it takes a week for it to appear. That plus their list of pending transactions is incomplete even if you avoid contactless means I'm getting stung every month, negating any cashback.

So it's time to switch card, are there any out there that don't pull this stunt??

Nasqueron

No card will do this, not all transactions are "online" i.e. charge the bank at the same time as you do the transaction, many will do it "offline" and you may get the bill even a couple of days later

Just increase your limit or budget properly for your limit

Lum

so set it to a grand and treat the top 200 as an overdraft.

TBH just accepting Faster Payments rather than sitting on it or a week, and giving me an SMS and chance to sort it, like banks do, is all I really need.

shortcrust

If you're not confident that you can mange your budgeting on your own I'd steer well clear of credit cards. They just don't work in the way you want and you're trashing your credit file by going over your limit. You might find that you're not able to increase your limit now on the Asda card.

YorkshireBoy

Lum wrote: »

I have an Asda cashback card that I lowered the limit to £800 on as this is my budget for non-fixed bills, food and luxuries.

Most people would operate a monthly budget. You appear to operate with a 2-monthly budget, ie £400 per month. If you're spending £800 a month you need a £1,600 limit as a minimum.

And as for your "if you send them money...it takes a week for it to appear" statement, well if you're talking about Faster Payments, ie online/telephone banking, then that's in direct contravention of the Payment Services Regulations so I presume you've reported both your bank and the card provider to the relevant authorities? Unless of course it's simply an exaggeration for effect?

Lum

ATM I'm doing the month's spend on it and making sure I don't go above what I can pay off when I get paid at the end of the month, this is why I lowered the limit from £4000 once I'd cleared it.

Unfortunately, even with daily checking of the amount you're screwed if the pendings don't show, even though I keep a small amount of cash back to top it up if I get too close. Just a card where if I send money to it it (or get a refund) it actualkly gets processed same day is all I need tbh.

In this particular case the offending transaction was an emergency £20 vet bill that I thought I could afford, but there was a hidden fiver from a motorway services stop a few days ago that I'd forgotten about.

Lum

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

And as for your "if you send them money...it takes a week for it to appear" statement, well if you're talking about Faster Payments, ie online/telephone banking, then that's in direct contravention of the Payment Services Regulations so I presume you've reported both your bank and the card provider to the relevant authorities? Unless of course it's simply an exaggeration for effect?

4 working days, so unless it's done on a Monday then 6 days in total from me sending the money via online banking to them deducting the amount from my card balance, so if I do go over and realise straight afterwards there is no way to avoid the overlimit fee.

YorkshireBoy

Lum wrote: »

4 working days, so unless it's done on a Monday then 6 days in total from me sending the money via online banking to them deducting the amount from my card balance, so if I do go over and realise straight afterwards there is no way to avoid the overlimit fee.

Then report them. Your cash has to credit the account by the end of the next business day latest. Worst case scenario is 2 business days, if you miss your bank's cut-off (usually very late though!), or initiate the payment request on a non-business day.

Of course you could increase the limit and/or carry a pen and paper around to record your spends and eliminate the problem altogether.

Lum

Best way to do that?

Complaint to card issuer first, then FSO if they don't play ball, or report elsewhere?

Do the regs apply if the card issuer claims not to support the faster payments service? If not which issuers do support it?

Lum

In this case, the transaction that messed up my calculations did not show up on the website when I last checked at ~9pm on Friday before doing a top-up shop with my remaining money, but today is showing as having gone out on that day, with an over limit fee going out yesterday, but even if I'd spotted it yesterday and sent money immediately, it wouldn't show up until Thursday, so unavoidable fee.

I'm especially !!!!ed off because I got that top up shop 8p shy of the limit and enough to last me until payday, and checked the statement again at 11pm to confirm I'd gotten it right.

agrinnall

Lum wrote: »

Best way to do that?

Complaint to card issuer first, then FSO if they don't play ball, or report elsewhere?

Do the regs apply if the card issuer claims not to support the faster payments service? If not which issuers do support it?

Every UK financial institution is covered by the PSRs, and if you are making payments by FPS then clearly the card issuer does support it, otherwise they wouldn't offer it as a payment method.

However, it may not be quite as clear cut as YB says, as payment to a credit card is a 2 stage process: first the payment is made from your bank to a collection account at the bank used by the card issuer, then the card issuer allocates that payment to your card account in their own systems. I'm not entirely sure whether the PSRs cover both parts of the transaction or just the first one.