Warning to Curve Card users - cash withdrawals might be charged!

SnowTiger

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

I think a lot will depend on whether Curve sends the transactions through with a Transaction Type of 05 (sale) or 07 (cash) rather than any Issuer picking up on the MCC.

Curve are possibly losing a lot of money allowing ATM withdrawals and then posting the transactions on as 'Sales' because they might be paying the ATM operator a fee for the initial cash withdrawal and then paying the linked Card Issuer an Interchange fee for processing the Sale - such is the way interchange payments work in the card world - or at least they used to.

They must be trying to plug this hole in their finances but I don't think it will work for them unless they use the Cash Transaction Type of 07. If they do, you will definitely start to get charged a cash advance handling fee for credit card transactions - and possibly even for debit card transactions.

I guess the only way to find out for sure is to try it out.

BTW, happy to be corrected if I have described the process incorrectly as my cards knowledge is 14 years out of date.

I don't think this change has anything to do with cashmachine withdrawals. Curve already limits free withdrawals to £200 a month from credit cards. It would have been simple to set the free limit to £0.

Curve has faffed around with their Merchant Category Code before, leading to Natwest and Tesco Bank customers being charged unexpected fees by the underlying card. They know what problems changing their MCC causes.

That's why I suspect this change was forced on them. The fact they've quietly announced it in a vaguely titled blog post reinforces my suspicion.

McWedge

This is pretty annoying, but, to be honest, expected. Good while it lasted but really too good to be true. The only reason for me keeping Curve now is that it makes my non-contactless and non google pay card contactless.

Nick_C

It also allows you to charge purchases to a CC at retailers who only accept debit cards.

And if Curve starts allowing you to link Amex, which seems likely, it will enable you to charge transactions to Amex at places like Lidl and B&Q

adindas

Nick_C wrote: »

It also allows you to charge purchases to a CC at retailers who only accept debit cards.

And if Curve starts allowing you to link Amex, which seems likely, it will enable you to charge transactions to Amex at places like Lidl and B&Q

I remember someone was saying curve does not allow people to link Amexcard.


I wonder if someone has anyone actually tried to link Amexcard to curve ?

Nick_C

Currently, you cannot link Curve to Amex. But there are rumours that this may change.