HSBC rant

[alan_m]

In the case of CC they get the merchant fee. If they can get the merchant to switch from taking cash to accepting cards they get fees for using a card vs no fees for when the customer uses cash.

A couple of percent on all of the retailers' turnover is a good incentive for a CC company to accept anyone who is willing to use their cards.

More possibly to do with covid and the lockdown a few of the small businesses close to me have gone from cash only (no £50 notes accepted*) to also taking cards and judging from what I've seen a lot of customer do use cards for every purchase. During the two years of Covid restrictions I only used around £100 in cash - the rest was by CC card.

Cash flow. The CC company still have to pay the retailer in full, possibly within 60 days or less. How do they do that if all their customers take years to pay off what they have spent? They rely on customers who pay of 100% of their CC spend each month.

But if the default rate is high the interest rate only covers the amounts they have to write off - but not the money they have to pay back to the retailer in a timely manner.

• A couple of years back I saw some convincing plastic £10 note forgeries and recently a couple of shops close to me have recently put up notices saying no £20 and £50 notes.

[charles]

When I got my new John Lewis one, the Credit limit was increased - perhaps to tempt me to buy something I'd need to pay back by installments?

[Andy Burns]

Try telling Tesco you can't afford any groceries and see if they let you keep taking some home anyway ...

[alan_m]

Banks and CC companies will not discuss fraud measures except in general terms. Perhaps in these cases there is continued fraud attempts on these cards that has been detected and stopped without the customer being aware. Without knowing all the facts I'm not sure we on these newsgroup can draw any valid conclusions.

[charles]

mine doesn't have a coin slot

[Chris Green]

What monthly fee?

I don't think I've paid a credit card monthly charge for a very, very long time, if I ever did. I know in the early days of credit cards some did charge a fee though. I believe charge cards (e.g. American Express) do have a monthly fee,

In Europe bank charges and such tend to be much more 'up front' in that you get charged a monthly fee for your bank account and a fee for your credit/debit card. There's no 'free' banking as in the UK, but their charges for extras and such are much lower (I have a BRED account in France).

[Brian Gaff]

I heartily agree. Milk and more got into very hot water when they tried to get all the elderly folk to administer their deliveries only on line, In the end pressure from disability organisations on the reasonable adjustments clause in the equality law, made them reinstate a telephone service. Whether banks would play ball is another matter. I had a refusal to give me Credit at an Apple store because I had no passport or driving licence. Barclays in this case turned out to be the issue, so I borrowed the money from a friend and paid him instead. Its all bonkers if you ask me, they claimed it was money laundering legislation, well, really? Brian

[Davey]

The issue was the failure of the companies to engage with the customers according to the rules which they had agreed to.

[Mike Humphrey]

Pre-payment is also on a (slightly) more expensive tariff than credit meters paid on receipt of bill, which is itself (slightly) more than paying by direct debit. So even disregarding the payment of outstanding debts it's more expensive to be on pre-payment. Understandable really as there's more overhead in processing the payments, but it does mean those least able to afford it get higher prices.

Mike

[Bob Eager]

My (UK) bank has an accounty for which you pay £2 a month. It gets you some special offers, etc. If you have two regular monthly direct debits, they give you £4 every month. If you use their app once a month, you get an extra £1. Seems bonkers, but...

That account used to give you a percentage of all 'utility' direct debits. Our consumption of gas/electricity is quite high. We pay a lot to the ISP for a couple of reasons. I was making £350 a year from the bank. No wonder they 'simplified' it.

[charles]

I am treasurer for a small charity. We pay a monthly fee to ouur bank. This was only introduced in the last few years.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Girl at HSBC broke rules to get an issue sorted out for a friend. They are hopeless

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well neither did I know that Lloyds would be incompetent criminals when I opened mine in 1968

Nor yet Barclays in 1995

Nor yet HSBC in 2017

[The Natural Philosopher]

It isnt. Credit cards charge the vendor a percent or two

Because they want to stay in business?

[alan_m]

But not all customers. The various articles that I seen are suggesting all people transferred to pre-payment haven't been consulted beforehand whereas it's only a small minority of cases where no consultation has taken place. People objecting to being put on pre-payment because of debts is not the same as being switched over without any warning.

[alan_m]

My UK current account is free and I also get money back for paying by DD and using my debit card. Although it used to be up to £5 a month it's now down to £1/month for DD and accessing your web interface once a month and 5p (max £1/month) for every bank card transaction. I tend not to use my bank card too often because my CC pays 0.5% cashback which on my average transaction gives me more than 5p.

With my bank I could pay an optional fee to "enhance" the features on my current account such as x% off certain services but after a short consideration/research I found most of these discounts are somewhat false and shopping around I could get the same or cheaper deals without having to pay the bank a optional fee.

Having sucked in people to accounts with fees offering other deals many of the banks have since reduced the actual value of these extra deals.

[alan_m]

But that is possibly classed as a business account rather than a personal account.

[Fredxx]

I thought that was now outlawed, and the same standard tariff applies to both credit and pre-payment meters.

Agreed.

Generally, the options are reduced for those who can't handle and budget money. If you have a good credit rating you can generally move to a credit tariff. There is a choice, you have significant control over your own credit rating.

[Chris Green]

Yes, it always has been difficult to find free business accounts (which is what charities have to have). We (church) get our account free at LLoyds.

[Fredxx]

Isn't that going to be cheaper for the customer than the cost of a warrant and further court costs? At least the supply doesn't get cut off.

I would hardly calling it mis-use unless you think some people should get their energy for free?