when is a cash tfr a cash tfr

fairways56

Hi hello
I am with tesco bank

Today on my credit card statement I was charged a cash purchase fee on a gift card I bought on line from a company called dunns using my credit card as it was classed as a cash purchase, that will attract interest for three months.

I also bought a gift card in Asda a few days before that did not.

Is their a list of credit card providers that do not class gift cards as cash.

I bought a gift voucher for my son's wedding anniversary for a local restaurant no charge on my credit card so this was not a cash purchase, but the reason given for by my credit card was that gift card on line is cash but online at the restaurant was not .
Amazon & waterson vouchers no charge.

I suppose the question is when is a gift card cash and when is it not when using a credit card ?

or is this just another rip off.
any one else had this problem

Yours Neil 

CliveOfIndia

It's very difficult to know for certain, as it depends on which MCC (Merchant Category Code) is assigned to a particular retailer.  But, as a very rough rule of thumb, gift cards will be treated as cash if you buy them from a dedicated retailer who sells nothing but gift cards, they'll be treated as a standard purchase if you buy them from a supermarket along with your groceries.

fairways56 said:

it was classed as a cash purchase, that will attract interest for three months.

Why will it attract interest for 3 months?  It'll attract interest from the transaction date until it's repaid, with a small amount of trailing interest the following month.

DullGreyGuy

fairways56 said:

Hi hello
I am with tesco bank

Today on my credit card statement I was charged a cash purchase fee on a gift card I bought on line from a company called dunns using my credit card as it was classed as a cash purchase, that will attract interest for three months.

I also bought a gift card in Asda a few days before that did not.

Is their a list of credit card providers that do not class gift cards as cash.

I bought a gift voucher for my son's wedding anniversary for a local restaurant no charge on my credit card so this was not a cash purchase, but the reason given for by my credit card was that gift card on line is cash but online at the restaurant was not .
Amazon & waterson vouchers no charge.

I suppose the question is when is a gift card cash and when is it not when using a credit card ?

or is this just another rip off.
any one else had this problem

Just to add detail, when you decide you want to take card payments you are given a merchantID by your chosen processor thats unique to you but also assigned an MCC which is similar to an SIC code or such in that it broadly says what you do as a business. 

For a variety of reasons a business may decide it needs to have more than one merchant account, eg a travel agent may have one for booking holidays and a separate one for FX. Different merchantIDs may have different MCCs based on what that particular one is going to be used for. 

A single transaction has to go via a single merchantID and so all the transaction will be considered to have been for that MCC/purpose even if it was actually a shopping cart of different things. 

Dedicated gift card shop will have a code relevant to that, a supermarket, that happens to sell gift cards will have a MCC that equates to a supermarket and likewise a restaurant. Only if they decided to have a special account for gift cards would the problem arise and as a consequence you wouldn't be able to buy your gift card with your shopping as they have to go through as seperate transaction. 

You'll find lots of examples of where a company is 90% one thing but 10% another and any transaction, irrespective what it's for, will count as the 90%. Ex randomly bought a wallet from an FX place and got charged as a cash like transaction as clearly their MCC will be as a FX bureau as they dont sell many wallets.