Contactless Limit

GeoffTF

I have just found out that it is not possible to reduce the contactless limit on my Barclaycard Rewards Card. I am pensioner living alone and have a big supermarket at the end of my road. I shop frequently for fresh food, and I rarely make in person payments over £20. A £100 contactless limit seems bonkers to me. It is possible to reduce the contactless limit for Barclays debit cards, but not their credit cards. (As an aside, it is possible to use Google Pay with Barclays debit cards, but not their credit cards.) How nuts is that?

I also have a Santander MasterCard debit card. It makes sense to have a Visa card with another bank for resilience. The Co-op has a Visa cashback credit card. I could consider that. Nationwide also has a Visa credit card, but with no cashback.

Perhaps I am getting excited about nothing. Barclays should compensate me if someone steals my card and goes on a contactless spending spree.

jbrassy

I have the BC Rewards card and am not aware you are able to reduce the limit. I don't have a Barclays debit card so can't comment on that.

I wouldn't worry too much about fraud though. I had some fraudulent transactions on my BC Rewards card and they gave me the money back quite soon after. Further, if you use Barclays debit card on Google Pay, the chances of being a victim of fraud are very low. Google Pay and Apple Pay use tokenisation which makes it almost impossible for someone to commit fraud. 

prettyandfluffy

You can probably, using the App, freeze and unfreeze the card so if you're worried about potential fraud that is a course of action open to you - as long as you remember to unfreeze it before using it!

GeoffTF

Nationwide does not allow the contactless limit to be changed for its credit cards. The same appears to apply to the Co-op. I have not been able to find any Visa credit card that allows the contactless limit to be reduced.

molerat

GeoffTF said:

 I have not been able to find any Visa credit card that allows the contactless limit to be reduced.

MBNA ............

GeoffTF

molerat said:

GeoffTF said:

 I have not been able to find any Visa credit card that allows the contactless limit to be reduced.

MBNA ............

MBNA is owned by Lloyds Bank. I have not been able to find any useful information on the Lloyds/Halifax cards, and finding a phone number to ring is near impossible. MBNA seems to have a sort of cashback, but they do not give any useful details. The header shows Costa Coffee, Harvey Nichols, Just Eat, and Sainsburys. No mention of Asda and Lidl. It looks like you only get cashback from overpriced suppliers in posh areas. No mention of Visa or being able to change the contactless limit. Do I want to do business with a bank that has this attitude to customer service?

SiliconChip

Why not stop doing ths sort of spending on your Barclaycard and use a Chase debit card instead? That will pay you 1% cashback, give you 1% interest on balances held in the account (and 4.1% if you also open their savings account) and from what I can see it's possible to set your own spending limits - the downside of course is that you have to run it through the app, and your mobile phone must be able to install the app, primarily by using 64 bit processing.

GeoffTF

SiliconChip said:

Why not stop doing ths sort of spending on your Barclaycard and use a Chase debit card instead? That will pay you 1% cashback, give you 1% interest on balances held in the account (and 4.1% if you also open their savings account) and from what I can see it's possible to set your own spending limits - the downside of course is that you have to run it through the app, and your mobile phone must be able to install the app, primarily by using 64 bit processing.

I already have a MasterCard debit card with my Santander 123 Lite account. Chase is also MasterCard. If the MasterCard network is down, I would be unable to pay. I have got 0.25% cashback on the Barclaycard Rewards Card, and a average of 5 weeks interest free credit each month. A friend says that he gets an instant notification of each debit card transaction on his Chase account and immediately transfers over the money to pay for it from the Chase savings account. Even so, the 1% cashback all but melts away on my modest expenditure, and is an introductory offer anyway. The credit card is more convenient. I also have less interest paying accounts to report to HMRC. The easy option is to do nothing.

WillPS

GeoffTF said:

 A £100 contactless limit seems bonkers to me

It's not just some amount they've randomly selected, they've built up to it from £20, to £30 to eventually £100. You can guess from those increases that they are entirely comfortable with the amount of fraud, and you have nothing to worry about. Of all the card fraud vectors we see on here, contactless fraud is rarely reported (and often turns out to not be fraud at all when it is). You should of course read your statements carefully to ensure it is all legitimate spend, and trust Barclaycard will put it right for you if any occurs.

GeoffTF said:

It is possible to reduce the contactless limit for Barclays debit cards, but not their credit cards. (As an aside, it is possible to use Google Pay with Barclays debit cards, but not their credit cards.) How nuts is that?

All this functionality has only recently been added to debit cards, and will I'm sure follow for Barclaycards. It's an annoyance they've dragged their feet over Google Pay so long but at least they're finally doing it.

GeoffTF said:

I also have a Santander MasterCard debit card. It makes sense to have a Visa card with another bank for resilience. The Co-op has a Visa cashback credit card. I could consider that. Nationwide also has a Visa credit card, but with no cashback.

There's also an Asda branded Visa card from Jaja which pays cashback via Asda Rewards. But if it's just a backup, you're probably never going to earn more than a few pence on it right? In which case, it really doesn't matter.

FWIW I've given up my Visa credit backup, but I carry an Amex (the Mastercard is in fact the backup). If both Mastercard and Amex were down I suppose I could use a Visa Debit card in my Google Wallet if needs be.

GeoffTF said:

Perhaps I am getting excited about nothing. Barclays should compensate me if someone steals my card and goes on a contactless spending spree.

They have to. It's very rare we hear of genuine fraud being actioned with anything other than an immediate remedy for the victim. If this were to happen, you'd have cause for complaint and compensation. You're good

GeoffTF

WillPS said:

There's also an Asda branded Visa card from Jaja which pays cashback via Asda Rewards. But if it's just a backup, you're probably never going to earn more than a few pence on it right? In which case, it really doesn't matter.

It is my Santander MasterCard debit card that is my backup for small in person payments. I also use it for big online payments, e.g. to stockbrokers.

I did have previous incarnations of the Asda credit card. It was fine with their first provider, but terrible when they switched to PNB Paribas and gave electronic vouchers that would not scan at the self service checkouts as cashback instead of cash in the account. I am reluctant to try their latest provider, whoever that is, for about £15 a year more than I am getting (and that is assuming that the interest free period is as generous). Pounds not points? They do not appear to apply to the cheap basic ingredients that I am buying.

Nonetheless, I think your general comments are right. The Barclaycard that I have got is a good deal, and Barclays is likely to get around to offering Google Pay and the ability to set your contactless limit, freeze your card etc eventually.

Barkin

GeoffTF said:
 MBNA seems to have a sort of cashback, but they do not give any useful details. The header shows Costa Coffee, Harvey Nichols, Just Eat, and Sainsburys. No mention of Asda and Lidl. It looks like you only get cashback from overpriced suppliers in posh areas. No mention of Visa or being able to change the contactless limit. 

You may be looking at a different card of course, but my MBNA (Visa) card gives 0.5% cashback on all transactions (except cash withdrawals, currency purchase etc - the usual stuff)

There are "smart rewards" in addition to this, which change and expire. e.g. I can  currently get 20% cashback on 'posh overpriced' wine from Laithwaites, expiring in 5 days.

And yes, the contactless limit can be changed in the app.