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pay as you go?

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Good morning,


I'm new to this board and plan to use credit cards in the form "pay as you go".
1. is this the correct board for and
2. has anybody positive or negative experiences with these cards?


Best regards from
Germany
«1

Comments

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 35,242 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    We don't have such a term in the UK.

    Perhaps better to search on a German site.
  • mt99
    mt99 Posts: 472 Forumite
    Could you tell us what 'pay as you go' is?
  • I assume he means pre-paid cards?

    Or paying money onto the card before spending it?
  • kuratowski
    kuratowski Posts: 1,415 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Or it could be paid in full (on receipt of each statement) - so never carrying a balance. A lot can get lost in translation.
  • Thank you for answering me. I meant with "pay as you go", load credit on the card to use it, but you can't spend more than you topped up before ;)


    You can top up those cards on several gas stations or buy redeem vouchers to top it up online e.g. (at least in my area).


    Oh, I thought these sort of credit cards were "normal" outside of Germany.
    In my opinion these cards are clever for online shopping. You needn't to name your own banking connection for the payment ;-)
  • They're not a very clever choice for online shopping, as it's your own money which is at risk.

    With a credit card, it's the bank's.
  • Migster
    Migster Posts: 150 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    They're not a very clever choice for online shopping, as it's your own money which is at risk.

    With a credit card, it's the bank's.
    True, and I'd always use a credit card myself, but you can top the card up with the amount you intend to spend, so there's never any balance left on the card when you're not using it.
  • afis1904
    afis1904 Posts: 348 Forumite
    100 Posts First Anniversary Name Dropper
    You don't really need those sort of cards in the UK because UK debit cards have a sixteen digit card number just like credit cards meaning you can use them for the same sort of shopping.

    There are some cards which you can load money onto but they're usually for spending abroad (Revolut, TransferWise) or for children.
  • jennifernil
    jennifernil Posts: 5,709 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    We have travelled extensively in Germany and have found that the type of credit cards we use in U.K. are not common in Germany. The use of bank cards is much more common.

    VISA and MasterCard CCs are now being more widely accepted in Germany in recent years, even Lidl and Aldi there are taking them.

    Nico.....there are some drawbacks with the preloaded cards. Other than having to fund them up front, should you use a pay at pump petrol pump they will automatically reserve something like 100 euros from your balance (possibly as well as your actual purchase) and it can take several days for this to be released and available.

    It has also been reported that these prepaid cards often do not work at toll stations, such as on the French Autoroutes.
  • NicoA.hrens
    NicoA.hrens Posts: 5 Forumite
    First Post Photogenic
    edited 26 January 2020 at 5:04PM
    it could be these credit cards are for children (target group) to load money on it. I don't see any drawbacks on these cards. In the last decade I made positive experiences with these top up cards for online shopping. My big mistake was to care this "system" online, that happened the card company shut the account; maybe I didn't load new money on it for the year's fee.



    But I think what for children are good, could be for grown ups good as well :-)


    It depends on the intentions you want to use these cards, my intentions are online shopping, generally.
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