Is paying on money collection websites with a Credit Card considered a cash transaction?

KobraD

Dear all,

I have been invited to contribute to a gift through the website leetchi.com. The site would let you spend the money collected with amazon or it would let you make a bank transfer of the collected funds (charging up to 4% of the total collected).

The site allows you to pay with Visa/Mastercard Debit/Credit cards however, I was wondering if this sort of transaction made with a credit card would be considered as a cash transaction. :huh:

I was thinking to pay my share with an aquacard rewards which will make you pay a fee when making cash transactions. This is what I found related to cash transactions among the documents related to my credit card.

"Charges: Cash fee of 3% of the amount of the transaction (at least £3.00) for all cash transactions made in the UK or abroad. Interest is charged from the date the transaction is added to your account even if you pay off your standard balance in full. (...) A cash transaction also includes the purchase of travellers' cheques or foreign currency and gambling transactions."

So... what do you think? Would you consider this a cash transaction? :think:

Willing2Learn

I would send a secure message to your card issuer, asking them the same question. You will then have written confirmation from the 'horses mouth'.


Or


If you could not be bothered to send a Secure Message to your card issuer, I would make the payment by debit card instead.

Ben8282

By the fact that the website is written entirely in French I assume you will not be paying in GBP so there will also be a foreign transaction fee to consider.
Can you not decline the invitation and arrange your own gift?

phillw

KobraD wrote: »

I have been invited to contribute to a gift through the website leetchi.com. The site would let you spend the money collected with amazon or it would let you make a bank transfer of the collected funds (charging up to 4% of the total collected).

I would not take up the invitation. I would recommend that nobody does. The person who organised this is not a MSE

Can't you just give the recipient some money?

Ben8282

The OP is slightly misleading because I think the idea is to collect money to buy gifts for good causes so it is more like donating to charity than say contributing to a wedding present.
You set up this pot then are supposed to send out invitations on social media to all and sundry to get them to contribute.
I don't see how contributers will have any control over what happens to the money or who gets the gift though.
Not recommended at all. Strikes me as a scammers paradise.
As an aside language choice on the website is funny. For English you have the choice of English (EU) with EU flag or English (UK) with UK flag!

KobraD

Willing2Learn wrote: »

I would send a secure message to your card issuer, asking them the same question. You will then have written confirmation from the 'horses mouth'.


Or


If you could not be bothered to send a Secure Message to your card issuer, I would make the payment by debit card instead.

I have just followed your advice and sent a message to my card issuer. It is probably the best way to find this out!

Ben8282 wrote: »

By the fact that the website is written entirely in French I assume you will not be paying in GBP so there will also be a foreign transaction fee to consider.
Can you not decline the invitation and arrange your own gift?

The payment in another currency should not be a problem: with aqua Reward there are no fees for non-sterling transactions, it simply applies mastercard currency rates. If I cannot use the credit card I might use Revolut to convert some GBP to EUR and chip in!

KobraD

phillw wrote: »

I would not take up the invitation. I would recommend that nobody does. The person who organised this is not a MSE

Can't you just give the recipient some money?

Sorry I should have explained this better. I have some French friends that are planning to make a gift to a common acquaintance and they invited me to chip in using that service.

Ben8282 wrote: »

The OP is slightly misleading because I think the idea is to collect money to buy gifts for good causes so it is more like donating to charity than say contributing to a wedding present.
You set up this pot then are supposed to send out invitations on social media to all and sundry to get them to contribute.
I don't see how contributers will have any control over what happens to the money or who gets the gift though.
Not recommended at all. Strikes me as a scammers paradise.
As an aside language choice on the website is funny. For English you have the choice of English (EU) with EU flag or English (UK) with UK flag!

The service is legit but it is mainly used by French people (which might explain the weird language choice). Contributors have no control on the money, I think only the organizer does. In this specific case I know the organizer so I am sure it is not a scam.

My question was if contributing to this pot using my credit card would be considered as a cash transaction by the card issuer.

If it was for me I would have suggested to share the bank account details of one trusted friend and send him the money...

phillw

KobraD wrote: »

If it was for me I would have suggested to share the bank account details of one trusted friend and send him the money...

Can't you do that anyway? Then give them the hassle.

It wasn't suggesting it was a scam, I hate any kind of gift voucher scheme.

Terry_Towelling

You cannot be sure how the transaction will be treated - and your card issuer can't tell you exactly either.

It is primarily down to the way the site processes its transactions. If they properly profile them as cash (unlikely) then your issuer will almost certainly treat them as such and you'll pay a cash fee and interest.

If the site processes them as 'purchases' (more likely), there is the possibility that your issuer will view them as 'cash-like' transactions. It will probably be the Merchant Category Code (MCC or SIC) present in the transaction that your issuer will look at in making this determination - although I believe there may also be a 'quasi-cash' indicator in the transaction message.

So, your issuer will be able to tell you broadly what sort of 'purchases' it considers to be 'cash-like' (e.g. gambling, gift cards etc) but they will not be able to tell you whether the MCC used by the merchant will fall into that category until they actually see said MCC in a transaction.

In essence, the situation you describe sounds akin to funding an e-wallet, so there is a chance of it being treated as cash. Personally, however, I'd suspect it won't be - but I'm not offering to refund your cash fee/interest if they do!