more purchases treated as "cash"

molerat

Alex9384 said:

I bought

Fingerbobs said:

Never have I had a "Gift Card top-up" treated as a cash transaction. They just go through the till as a normal purchase, so the card provider has no way to know it was a gift card purchase/top-up. If you want to be certain, just buy some normal shopping in the same transaction. They're not going to put two transactions through with different MCCs. 

Same here. Last time I tried in 2019, I believe it was in SuperDry. It was treated by Barclaycard like a normal purchase.

Gift cards in store are unlikely ever to be treated as cash like as they are reported as just a purchase but gift cards and top ups from an organisation that deals only in that area most likely will.

born_again

dmmm said:

I also use the card to top up via employee benefits portal. So far it does not seem they get treated as 'cash'. However the vague defnitions and lack of warning have me worried - they can treat ANYTHING as 'cash' at any given time.

If they want to treat certain transactions differently fine, calling them 'cash' or 'cash like' is a scam in my opinion, especially if they do not let you know in advance if they will treat it as cash.

I will stop using this card and look for other options but since the inept regulator allows that scam to go on, it is a matter of time before all lenders succumb to greed and do the same. They will just keep extending the 'cash like' list of transactions.

So you think that using a Bureau de Change to buy foreign currency on your CC should not be treated as cash? 

Most of these are covered in the T/C 👍

Exodi

dmmm said:

If they want to treat certain transactions differently fine, calling them 'cash' or 'cash like' is a scam in my opinion, especially if they do not let you know in advance if they will treat it as cash.

I will stop using this card and look for other options but since the inept regulator allows that scam to go on, it is a matter of time before all lenders succumb to greed and do the same. They will just keep extending the 'cash like' list of transactions.

Unfortunately because of a select few individuals in the world, we can't have nice things.

As said - some of these are due to the fact that some 'purchases' allow you to hold a balance, and then withdraw to different accounts (e.g. gambling sites, FX, investment platforms, etc). If you did this with a 0% credit card, you could in essence create a large 0% interest loan - essentiallly allowing anyone to perform 0% interest credit card arbitrage.... even if you didn't invest it and dropped it in a low interest savings account, you'd essentially be printing money at the banks expense.

They don't release a full list because it would encourage people to work out what's missing and exploit it.

dmmm

Then they should warn their customers before the transaction is complete if that is going to be 'cash' or whatever else they want to call it. Blaming the vendor and the customer  and doing nothing else is not acceptable. If they cannot offer this basic protection they should not be allowed to operate. Greed seems to be the motive here and not protecting customers.

Thrugelmir

dmmm said:

Then they should warn their customers before the transaction is complete if that is going to be 'cash' or whatever else they want to call it. Blaming the vendor and the customer  and doing nothing else is not acceptable. If they cannot offer this basic protection they should not be allowed to operate. Greed seems to be the motive here and not protecting customers.

Protecting customers against what? More a question of the banks stopping customer abuse. 

Sandtree

dmmm said:

Then they should warn their customers before the transaction is complete if that is going to be 'cash' or whatever else they want to call it.

And how do you think that should work @dmmm? You go to the Bureaux de Change to get your travel money, hand over your credit card to pay and... ?

If you have a mobile with you and you have reception then you have to take a call within 1 second? Can't get it out your pocket in time, didn't bring it with you, no reception, no credit (if overseas) etc then an auto-decline?

Does that protect the majority or cause inconvenience for the majority? 

Fingerbobs

Sandtree said:

dmmm said:

Then they should warn their customers before the transaction is complete if that is going to be 'cash' or whatever else they want to call it.

And how do you think that should work @dmmm? You go to the Bureaux de Change to get your travel money, hand over your credit card to pay and... ?

If you have a mobile with you and you have reception then you have to take a call within 1 second? Can't get it out your pocket in time, didn't bring it with you, no reception, no credit (if overseas) etc then an auto-decline?

Does that protect the majority or cause inconvenience for the majority? 

A prompt on the card terminal: 
"You will be charged for this transaction. Press Green to continue or Red to cancel"
That would do the trick. 

eskbanker

Fingerbobs said:

Sandtree said:

dmmm said:

Then they should warn their customers before the transaction is complete if that is going to be 'cash' or whatever else they want to call it.

And how do you think that should work @dmmm? You go to the Bureaux de Change to get your travel money, hand over your credit card to pay and... ?

If you have a mobile with you and you have reception then you have to take a call within 1 second? Can't get it out your pocket in time, didn't bring it with you, no reception, no credit (if overseas) etc then an auto-decline?

Does that protect the majority or cause inconvenience for the majority? 

A prompt on the card terminal: 
"You will be charged for this transaction. Press Green to continue or Red to cancel"
That would do the trick. 

While anything can be reduced to something that sounds ridiculously simple, do you have any idea how difficult and expensive it is to change international payment processing standards used by the vast number of organisations involved?

Sandtree

Fingerbobs said:

Sandtree said:

dmmm said:

Then they should warn their customers before the transaction is complete if that is going to be 'cash' or whatever else they want to call it.

And how do you think that should work @dmmm? You go to the Bureaux de Change to get your travel money, hand over your credit card to pay and... ?

If you have a mobile with you and you have reception then you have to take a call within 1 second? Can't get it out your pocket in time, didn't bring it with you, no reception, no credit (if overseas) etc then an auto-decline?

Does that protect the majority or cause inconvenience for the majority? 

A prompt on the card terminal: 
"You will be charged for this transaction. Press Green to continue or Red to cancel"
That would do the trick. 

So something outside of the issuing bank (that's ultimately deciding if its cash or not) control requiring a new international standard to be delveloped, millions (?) of card terminals around the world to be updated/replaced and a move back to the cardholder having to interact with the terminal more than just holding their card/phone near it... which decade were you hoping this would be done in?

dmmm

If credit card providers are unable or unwilling to work for their money, they should be forced out of business and make room for someone who is willing to. Same applies to the regulator.