Paying for a car using Direct Debit card

agrinnall

I'm not convinced that advising the bank in advance of an unusual transaction has much effect in most cases, as the initial decision whether to authorise or not will be done by software. I'd just make sure that you have the bank's phone number to hand so if it does fail authorisation you can quickly get in touch with them and they can manually intervene to let the transaction go through.

MataNui

hollie.weimeraner wrote: »

I would have thought they would contact the account holder to verify it as a genuine transaction

Yep. They phone the person who puts through the transaction and ask to speak to the account holder. Thats what they did with me. I would guess if the retailer tried to put it through as a 'cardholder not present' type they would simply decline it.

waamo

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm not convinced that advising the bank in advance of an unusual transaction has much effect in most cases, as the initial decision whether to authorise or not will be done by software. I'd just make sure that you have the bank's phone number to hand so if it does fail authorisation you can quickly get in touch with them and they can manually intervene to let the transaction go through.

I agree. Mrs waamo rang her bank last year to tell them she was about to buy a car so a large amount would be going out.

They weren't that interested. They told her the security department had their own method of making decisions on which transactions to check and putting a note on the system would have no bearing on wether the transaction was security checked or not.

Indout96

When I got my new car last month I was told that the most they could take on Debit Card was £1000 - I needed to do a bank transfer for the rest
Seemed odd but it was a main dealer (JCT600 Sheffield)
We have don debit card before for cars so not sure if this is a new thing or JCT600 were just wrong.

Manxman_in_exile

waamo wrote: »

I agree. Mrs waamo rang her bank last year to tell them she was about to buy a car so a large amount would be going out.

They weren't that interested. They told her the security department had their own method of making decisions on which transactions to check and putting a note on the system would have no bearing on wether the transaction was security checked or not.

Yes. I had to pay over 10 grand three years ago on a car. I rang the bank in advance to explain what was happening and they weren't concerned at all. The debit card payment went through with no problems, no 'phone calls, nothing.

Ebe_Scrooge

Indout96 wrote: »

When I got my new car last month I was told that the most they could take on Debit Card was £1000 - I needed to do a bank transfer for the rest
Seemed odd but it was a main dealer (JCT600 Sheffield)
We have don debit card before for cars so not sure if this is a new thing or JCT600 were just wrong.

I guess any business can impose whatever rules they want, regarding what payment types they'll accept. But that does sound a little odd - in my experience debit card has always been the preferred method for dealer. Very cheap for them to process, no faffing around waiting for cheques to clear, secure, instant verification that the funds have been transferred. I suppose there's an outside chance that a customer could subsequently attempt a chargeback, but they'd have to have a valid reason for doing so.

Oakdene

The transaction may well get 'referred' by the card merchant services which will mean a call to thier manual authorisation line where the dealer will physically input the transaction over the phone. This may produce a referral code which the dealer then inputs on the card machine & it goes through, or the merchant services team will require you to contact your bank to confirm you are buying the car.

Herzlos

Bank transfers are harder to get back? Maybe they got confused between debit and credit cards.

OP - you should be fine to pay with debit card, it may be declined in which case you talk to the bank (they'll probably call you right away). I've had it trying to pay for holidays rather than cars though.

Should be pretty slick, this sort of stuff happens pretty regularly.

System

£10k sounds like what the contactless limit will be in my lifetime

facade

Indout96 wrote: »

When I got my new car last month I was told that the most they could take on Debit Card was £1000 - I needed to do a bank transfer for the rest
Seemed odd but it was a main dealer (JCT600 Sheffield)
We have don debit card before for cars so not sure if this is a new thing or JCT600 were just wrong.

They get stung for a % of the transaction as a merchant fee from the bank.

There was some muttering on The News about making it against The Law from next year to pass this charge onto the customer, (most shops don't) but I imagine that Paypal have a team of lawyers trying to find a charging loophole.