cash or cash related payment charge
OceanSound
Posts: 1,482 Forumite
in Credit cards
The terms on my M&S Bank Credit card says that there is a 2.99% cash or payment charge (minimum £3) of the cash or cash related payment.
When does this charge appear (become apparent) on the account. Is it:
a) As soon as the transaction is carried out. i.e. it will become apparent from the available balance (as M&S Bank does not show pending transactions).
b) Once the transaction is processed, the charge will be shown alongside the actual transaction in 'recent transactions'.
c) when the statement is issued. It will be shown on the statement.
d) up to M&S Bank. The can do any of the above.
When does this charge appear (become apparent) on the account. Is it:
a) As soon as the transaction is carried out. i.e. it will become apparent from the available balance (as M&S Bank does not show pending transactions).
b) Once the transaction is processed, the charge will be shown alongside the actual transaction in 'recent transactions'.
c) when the statement is issued. It will be shown on the statement.
d) up to M&S Bank. The can do any of the above.
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Comments
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It would appear when the transaction is posted.0
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OceanSound wrote: »The terms on my M&S Bank Credit card says that there is a 2.99% cash or payment charge (minimum £3) of the cash or cash related payment.
When does this charge appear (become apparent) on the account. Is it:
a) As soon as the transaction is carried out. i.e. it will become apparent from the available balance (as M&S Bank does not show pending transactions).
b) Once the transaction is processed, the charge will be shown alongside the actual transaction in 'recent transactions'.
c) when the statement is issued. It will be shown on the statement.
d) up to M&S Bank. The can do any of the above.
Could create an interesting situation if M&S don't factor in the handling charge it at the Authorisation stage and the charge (when applied at posting) then takes you over your credit limit. If there is a penalty fee for exceeding the credit limit would it be reasonable to blame the cardholder for not factoring this in at the time of the transaction?0 -
I recently made a transaction, which didn't attract the cash or cash related payment charge at the time of posting. However, did attract the cash or cash related payment interest when the statement was produced.0
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OceanSound wrote: »I recently made a transaction, which didn't attract the cash or cash related payment charge at the time of posting. However, did attract the cash or cash related payment interest when the statement was produced.
Interest is only ever charged at the statement date.
Strange that you didn't attract a fee as this happens most if not all of the time these days.0 -
eco_warrior wrote: »Interest is only ever charged at the statement date.
Strange that you didn't attract a fee as this happens most if not all of the time these days.
whereabouts is this in the terms? or does it not need to be, if not charging the fee has been to my benefit?Strange that you didn't attract a fee as this happens most if not all of the time these days.
Because, strangely enough, by not charging the fee, I'm now in a worse position than if the fee had been charged. (if the fee was charged on the first transaction, I would have been aware that it was a cash transaction and not carried out the other three larger transactions of the same type)0 -
If you're saying that you were effectively using the first transaction to check if it would be treated as cash and relied on the fact that it wasn't before making further transactions of the same type after the statement had been generated (and had alternative cheaper means of making these subsequent transactions), then it might be worth filing a complaint with them.OceanSound wrote: »if the fee was charged on the first transaction, I would have been aware that it was a cash transaction and not carried out the other three larger transactions of the same type
Is it possible that they've changed their treatment of such transactions during the period in question though? There was a thread in which it was reported that Tesco had started to impose cash related fees on payments to the likes of JustGiving, which hadn't been clearly explained in published changes to their Ts & Cs....0 -
Could you let us know exactly what was the transaction/retailer environment?
I ask because there may be a difference between cash and cash-related transactions. A true cash transaction is processed in a very particular way and should create an interchange-fee-flow from Issuer to Cash provider. Your Issuer will charge you a fee to recover the fee it will have had to pay away to the cash provider.
For a cash-like (quasi-cash) transaction the transaction profile may end up creating a standard purchase interchange-fee-flow from retailer's processor to Issuer. Depending on the Issuer's systems, this latter situation would not warrant a cash handling fee as the Issuer has not had to pay away anything. However, their processing structure may still identify the transaction as quasi-cash and charge interest from day 1.
That might account for what you have experienced. The T&Cs are a bit of a catch-all because no Issuer will ever know exactly how an incoming transaction is going to be profiled by any given processing bank.0 -
If you're saying that you were effectively using the first transaction to check if it would be treated as cash and relied on the fact that it wasn't before making further transactions of the same type after the statement had been generated (and had alternative cheaper means of making these subsequent transactions), then it might be worth filing a complaint with them.
Is it possible that they've changed their treatment of such transactions during the period in question though? There was a thread in which it was reported that Tesco had started to impose cash related fees on payments to the likes of JustGiving, which hadn't been clearly explained in published changes to their Ts & Cs....
I've done this. When I first raised it with M&S Bank support they told me:...then it might be worth filing a complaint with them.
then I asked them to confirm the transactions that incurred the interest and highlighted that there hasn't been a 2.99% fee (minimum £3) charged.The interest is charged from the date of the transaction up until a payment is received and incurs a fee of 2.99% (minimum £3).
their reply was:
My next email said:I can confirm that the following transactions have been allocated by the merchant as cash transactions;
28 July 2018 Transferwise £10
31 July 2018 Transferwise £500
09 August Transferwise £1000
Cash transactions have no interest free period, the interest is charged immediately.
As these transactions were cash transfers, not cash withdrawals, there is no cash withdrawal fee.
their response was:After carrying out the transaction on 28 July 2018 for £10.00 I checked the recent transactions. There was no charge for £3. Hence, I was of the firm belief that it could not be a cash or cash related payment.
Notice that their reply says 'MAY incur a 2.99% fee (minimum £3)'. I never said 'MAY incur' in my message, the terms definitely doesn't say 'MAY' or imply this.As you've stated, we do outline in our terms and conditions that Cash transactions will attract interest at a rate of 23.9% APR daily and may incur a 2.99% fee (minimum £3).
The fact that Transfer wise transactions have not incurred an additional fee as well as daily cash interest has been to your benefit.
We will not be refunding the £17.08 worth of interest which was charged on 24 August statement.
I'm sorry for any disappointment caused.
Also please be aware that £1527.08 of your balance is being charged as cash and is incurring daily interest. Interest will continue to be charged until the £1527.08 is cleared in full.
I responded to this message by making a formal complaint. M&S bank has responded saying Transferwise has classified some of my transactions as cash and some as retail and that the '£3 fees have not been charged at this time, due to the transactions not being cash withdrawals. '
In the same message, they've then gone on to offer me the opportunity to take the matter to the ombudsman. i.e. issued the final response. However, I'm a bit sceptical about taking this to the ombudsman because as soon as you mention Terms and conditions to ombudsman the proverbial reply is 'it's probably something best suited for a Court. We only deal with fairness'.
So, I'm really thinking about taking it to a small claims Court.0 -
From a quick squint at the M&S Ts & Cs I'd be inclined to agree with you that either a transaction is a "cash or cash related payment" (in which case it incurs a fee and interest) or it isn't, in which case neither additional cost would apply. While I can understand their line of argument that it's the merchant that does the classifying, I fail to see how they can treat a transaction as cash for the purposes of interest but not for the fee, so that does seem inconsistent.
Having said that, I can't see you having much joy taking it to court - you'd obviously need to evidence actual losses to reclaim and you've actually been charged £12 less than you might have been, so that would no doubt be factored in even if you were able to construct any sort of case. Because it does seem to me to be more of an issue of fairness rather than a cut-and-dried breach of Ts & Cs, I'd have thought that FOS would make more sense - weren't you the poster who referred elsewhere to going to them more than once a year anyway?0 -
This business of a merchant classifying certain transactions as "cash" is becoming a bit of a lark. In the old days, cash was cash. There was little doubt about the transaction - a special voucher was used in the imprinter machine, it was red if I recall accurately.
Now "cash" has been extended to gambling, lottery tickets, etc etc. We've even heard of stuff like food being classified as cash because it was bought at a casino. It is not clear at the point of sale how something might be processed.
Much as I dislike the interference, surcharges have been outlawed. I do wonder if this will be an incentive to widen the net of what counts as "cash like".
As a footnote, I used to use a friendly bureau de change in Saigon. If I needed, say, £100 (in whatever currency) I could present my CC. He'd charge 3% and put it through as a purchase, or 1% and put it through as cash. Up to me!0
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