bank says using credit card doesn't involve debt - misselling?

Apart from a pain? ;-)

I don't think so. No actual money has changed hands until the cheque is cashed. With credit cards money does pass to the retailer immediately. I think of cheques more like different payment terms.

I doubt you'd get the protection of the CCA using a cheque.

They do, I quite regularly slightly overpay my credit card bill and the positive balance stays there until next time around.

It could be paid immediately. A cheque is an instruction to your bank to pay someone a specified amount of money. You could theoretically walk into their bank and have the money paid to you there and then in cash.

Chris

Especially if the world changes......

Many debit cards (liek Nationwide for exampel) appear to offer the same protection as a CC but I recently discovered that for a disputed CC debit it is the payees' bank that decides whether to pay the money back or not. I present the case to the nationwide and they present it to the other rbank who decide whether to pay back the money.

Is it different with a CC? Who makes the chargeback decision? I'd prefer it to be my bank.

Robert

A genuine credit card has the advantage of the provisions of the CCA. This can make the credit card company "jointly liable" under law.

Chargebacks can seem similar but they are at the discretion of the card company and can only be carried out for a limited amount of time after the transaction.

ause to speak to anyone at

On the last renewal of my Lloyds credit card they persuaded me that "payment protection insurance", costing 1% on top of turnover, was a good idea. So now I use it even less, using a debit card instead, except for travel. Probably a good deal for them, or is it just another scam?

rusty

PPI is often a scam. Lots of people who couldn't possibly have benefited from it, but were mis-sold it, have received compensation.

The banks would probably rather you used your credit card (if one of theirs) rather than your debit card - because they get a bigger fee from the merchants and can use the credit balance in your current account to their (but not your!) benefit.

In message , therustyone wrote

Unlikely to be a good idea - too many get clauses

Employment: You may have to be in the same job for at least 40 years in an industry with zero redundancies in the past.

Health: No family history of a similar problems and exclude common health problems of older age..

While the above may be a slight exaggeration you will have had to read the small print very carefully and have had to declared ANYTHING relevant to future claims.

The biggest gotcha maybe that the protection only pays off the minimum amount on the card. The "insurance" will pay the 5% minimum payment amount each month but the CC company will add the interest of, say, 20% to the remainder. The debt increase even if you don't use the card again.

It's win, win - but only for the CC company.

Credit cards are fine if you set up a direct debit to pay off the full amount each month. If you can't afford to pay off the full amount then why did you buy the thing in the first place? You shouldn't use the card as a source of a loan.

Plus, if you pay off by direct debit you'll never incur an interest charge, or a black credit mark for forgetting.

A credit card is a Credit Agreement. There is an interest free period (4-6 weeks).

They have been engineered into debt deliberately by finance & government.

- Debt was used to replace earnings.

- Corporations refused to invest, they wanted to spend on their own lifestyles.

- Average 1993 graduate £12.8k, 2012 graduate £11.5k and £35,000 debt .

- The top graduates in 2012 will only earn £5,100 more than they did in 1993.

Education was fudged like credit, in 1990 the independent school crowd (ISIS) boasted that the new A-level would mean a student would get 2 grades higher in every subject than in 1989. By 1998 it is 3 grades higher and by 2010 it is simply hilarious. It was "give everyone a degree (debt)" just as it was "give everyone a credit card even if they do not have a pulse".

The bad side of plastic. Cash & Cheque society has been eliminated - replaced by plastic. I intensely dislike plastic because a) plastic makes people spend more than cash and b) credit cards make people spend more than a debit card. Worse, we have multiple credit cards - quite literally £2k/yr disposable income against £24k credit card debt. Even worse for the investor is we have low interest rates (reserve cash has negative real rates) AND everything is no longer priced as the Cash Price, but a higher Credit Price. The removal of this higher Credit Price was stark in 2008 when many consumer items simply lost

The good side of credit cards.

- Most allow a credit limit of £500, quite a few allow £100.

- All give Consumer Protection for ALL of any item costing OVER £100 (not 10 items at £10), even if the card is only used to pay for PART of that item. Eg, pay £100 of a £5700 car on credit card and you are protected for the lot.

- They are useful in an emergency.

- They are useful for special bargains, Cash Price

What many do not realise is what shattering poverty future generations will have.

To add, cash back is very profitable for those who can use credit cards carefully. You are receiving £25-100-150/yr for no investment of cash in a world of 3% interest rates (pretty much negative).

However the real trick with credit cards was through 2000-2005 where

With BAC still in trouble, MBNA part of BAC, and Capital One etc not in good health there is the real possibility we see a wind back of credit cards to "traditional full service banks". That in turn would see a wind back of fees, £12 or £25/yr as the norm (which it used to be... October I think for NatWest Access). That in turn may see credit card limits return to sensible £500-1200 levels, £2300 when you had a history of investments, cash deposit etc with the bank.

With decline in living standards being deliberately shifted to future generations, so as to avoid the voting hit in the short term, the credit card industry is going to be hounding anyone who can offset their bad debt portfolios.

They handed cards out like toffee, but use them carefully in the