How Halifax Clarity Creidit Card now threatens to steal your money.

NoodleDoodleMan

Quite the opposite of cutting off nose to spite face - I only ever used Clarity abroad (I use a cashback card at home) and now I am using Tandem I am getting cashback abroad as well which Clarity didn't give me. It's also one less App on my phone.

In which case I would have thought that a regular DD was unnecessary ?

Just settle up when your monthly statement came around.

18cc

Always have a regular DD on all my credit cards just in case I forget, mess up etc

bd10

@18cc:
"In fact I would go further - anyone on here who has a smartphone and doesn't immediately close their Clarity card and use Tandem instead (and thus get cashback) is not a moneysavingexpert at all."

A tad judgmental I'd say. It's a free market and everyone has his/her own preferences and is free to choose. So, I'll keep my Clarity Card thank you very much.

chattychappy

redux wrote: »

I don't understand why people want large cash withdrawals anyway.

It isn't only the UK where card payment in even small establishments has become common.

First of all, many countries are still mostly cash based - eg Vietnam. Cards are not taken at all, or are subject to surcharge, or subject to a huge amount of faffing around.

Secondly, where DCC is common, for small transactions I prefer to pay cash than have to be super-careful to avoid DCC. Despite supposedly always getting the choice, that doesn't always happen.

NoodleDoodleMan wrote: »

Can somebody correct me please if I'm mistaken - but when you complete and submit a DD mandate is that not a written, signed and dated authority for the other party to debit the relevant account by a stipulated £? amount on a set regular cycle, monthly being the most common frequency ?

The other party has the right to amend the sum in question but have to give reasonable notice.

What you're describing is more like a standing order. Usually the DD is drawn up in broad terms. A key provision is they are meant to tell you in advance of the amount to be taken (ie on the statement). The CCs would argue they have given adequate notice through the statement and other means that the method of calculating DDs is changing. But I'm sympathetic to the point, and I don't sign DDs because of all this.

bd10 wrote: »

@18cc:
"In fact I would go further - anyone on here who has a smartphone and doesn't immediately close their Clarity card and use Tandem instead (and thus get cashback) is not a moneysavingexpert at all."

A tad judgmental I'd say. It's a free market and everyone has his/her own preferences and is free to choose. So, I'll keep my Clarity Card thank you very much.

Agree. Clarity and Santander Zero are tried and tested cards for me. When travelling, much more important than some kind of marginal cash back. If Tandem works for you, great. Take 'em all, I say.

MoneySavingExpert is not just about a few % here and there, it is also avoiding time wasting (=money) gotcha situations when something goes wrong where you have the real expense of taxi fares, Western Union, trips to embassies, international phone calls etc.

eDicky

18cc wrote: »

anyone on here who has a smartphone and doesn't immediately close their Clarity card and use Tandem instead (and thus get cashback) is not a moneysavingexpert at all.

Although I mostly now spend with my Tandem card, I see no reason at all to close my Clarity. It costs nothing to have as backup and there's plenty of room in my phone for the app. If any problem develops with Tandem I'll just abandon it until it's convenient and cost free to sort out, reverting to Clarity and other backups.

18cc

Yes it was a tad judgemental it was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek apologies if anybody was offended. I agree that you do need more than one credit card or whatever when abroad I have tandem, starling and monzo so decided I didn't really need a backstop to the backstop so ditched the Clarity Card

Samsung_Note2

polyphonic99 wrote: »

Do you work for Halifax/BOS by any chance?

Well in my opinion, when someone takes your money without your permission and with no claim on it, then that is theft. The only reason it is not theft technically is because of the DD mandate.


They want to take money that is not owed to them. I have already repaid them for what I borrowed on the credit card, they were then going to take a further £1000 of my money, simply because they have designed their systems to do that.

The money is removed from the current account that pays the DD which may well lead to cash flow issues for some people.

If I want a CC with £1000 of my money on as credit then I want to choose to do that myself, I don't want the CC provider making that choice for me.

I only use the Halifax card in Europe, not in the UK, and I won't be going back to Europe for 6 months, so it is of no benefit for me to leave £1000 credit on the card, it would be pretty dumb to do it wouldn't it..

I asked Halifax about a refund, they said the best option was to cancel the Direct Debit.

Thanks for your comments, but they ignore the change in policy from Halifax.

By god what a drama Queen you are...if your THAT disgusted with Halifax giving you access to this card,you know you could simply cancel it and there for stop them from stealing your money.:rotfl:

Might be worth remembering they offer you a service..its not your right to that service,they dont have to offer it and you dont have to accept it.

Blimey lot of fuss over nothing.

redux

chattychappy wrote: »

First of all, many countries are still mostly cash based - eg Vietnam. Cards are not taken at all, or are subject to surcharge, or subject to a huge amount of faffing around.

Secondly, where DCC is common, for small transactions I prefer to pay cash than have to be super-careful to avoid DCC. Despite supposedly always getting the choice, that doesn't always happen.

This thread starts off by being about travelling in Europe.

My last 8 trips to Europe have involved about 40 transactions, paying one hotel in cash (I knew in advance), one cash withdrawal on the way home as a tip for the tour guide, the rest all on a credit card.

In a couple of restaurants and cafes I asked in advance if they take cards. If they had said no I could have gone to a cash machine around the corner.

As for DCC, I have only one such experience in my life. A motorway forecourt in Poland pulled a stunt of charging in pounds at their own rate, without any pounds message on screen. I looked at the receipt, went back to the counter and politely demanded, so adjacent people could hear, they reverse the transaction and do it properly, in zloty. The manager came out and did it, without too much confusion, enough to convince me she'd done it before. When I got home I figured out they'd tried to thieve an extra 6.25%, worth quite a lot of money if they did it to everyone. I tried to report this direct to MasterCard, that the screen messages were deceptive, some missing, some wrong language, against their terms, but they just referred me to my own card issuer, who couldn't see the point of a complaint as I'd already had it corrected.

If instead of this I'd changed money in advance at an ATM, that would have taken extra time to drive off the motorway, might have had its own transaction cost, and could have left me with spare cash I wouldn't use for a while, as I was just leaving.

chattychappy

By way of "footnote", I've encountered DCC in Europe more than Asia. A number of people have reported Spain as a particular issue.

eskbanker

WOODY210363 said:

I have got my Halifax clarity card set up to pay the full balance every month so why do I get charged interest when ever I spend on it?

You obviously shouldn't be charged interest if you have a full balance direct debit set up - are you sure it's definitely interest rather than cash transaction charges, etc?  Or is there maybe some trailing interest from previously carrying a balance?