A&L credit card -Quidco-Betfair

kazzymac_2

Hello - just a quick question. Hope you dont mind me posting this on here as well as the credit card forum! After looking through Quidco I joined the many and opened up a Betfair account with £10 to bet on the Grand National to get £50 cash back. I paid the £10 using a debit card and then it said that my age needed to be verified so if I topped up by £2 this would verify my age (over 18) & they wouldn't charge me a transaction fee (1.5%). Looked online today and my credit card has been debited the £2 plus a £3 cash advance fee. Can anybody enlighten me as to why this is classed as a cash transaction before I call A&L? Is it because it is a gambling site? Just a bit confused as to why - any ideas? Thanks everyone. I have been a lurker for a while and have learnt loads from this forum so thanks again!:beer:

chal

Various credit card companies (MBNA is another) treat internet gambling payments as cash withdrawals because you're putting the money into a holding account from where it could potentially be withdrawn. If they didn't charge cash withdrawal fees for this, it would be a potential loophole.

This is my understanding, anyway. I hit the same issue a little while back when I signed up with some gambling sites through Quidco. I won enough of a profit (not including the Quidco money) to cover both the CC payments and the cash advance fees so I didn't bother overly about it. I also checked the CC T&Cs and it specifically mentions internet gambling sites in there.

kazzymac_2

Thanks Chal. This has been confirmed by people on the credit card forum too. Of course I now can understand the reasoning behind this. Luckily enough this card is paid off each month so I wont worry about this but will make a note for future. I only used the credit card to verify my age (£2)! I hope others wont have been caught out by this too. thanks again.

earthmother

You just prompted me to check my card (Capital One) - and yes, I got caught too - luckily, I won a little on Saturday anyway so it has covered it, but it's annoying all the same.