Companies with webcards that are student friendly?

OK, so your suggestion *is* to stop using credit cards apart from virtual one-time ones then?

Fine for those of a paranoid nature, but not helpful to most.

What happens when you check in at the hotel and they ask to swipe your card?

But Mr X, without coming straight out and saying so, states that you shouldnt use (and therefore presumably need) a 'real' credit card at all, using cash instead.

If they haven't debited the webcard, which is usually the case, I just give them a real card if there doesn't look to be a way to get out of it. That isn't very often.

I haven't found that many small family-run hotels, with a confirmed booking, ask for a card on arrival. It is mostly the bigger ones and the chains that do that.

I tend to contact local tourist information offices and, through them, find little guest houses and b&b rather than big hotels..

In article , Tumbleweed writes

These are all big jumps to conclusions on your part!

In questioning your silly declaration that you *have* to use a credit card to spend money. You don't! You choose to use one.

As above

Yes.

And if that is the way he operates, that is fine for him.

But I think the majority of people who will use the webcard system are likely to also have actual plastic, that they use regularly in face to face transactions.

This is a significant point, which he appears to be missing entirely.

You`re welcome to use cash as much as you want, but it`s hardly the best way to pay for things these days is it? I pay using a credit card so I get to keep my money in a high interest account for a month or so before having to pay for the item i`ve bought. On top of that I get cash back for using my credit card, don`t pay interest as I pay the bill off in full at the end of every month, plus I get a lot more protection incase of difficulties with an item, especially compared to cash.

As for web based sales using a webcard - do you gain the same protection as using a real credit card? Fore example if a company runs off with your money after buying with a webcard, what happens then?

Which for the majority of people in this group would be nowhere near enough money. it might do for you, but that wouldn`t cover a tank of petrol for my car, nor a night out, nor any kind of food shop. As it is I keep a bit of plastic in my pocket and am paid quite well for using it. Keeping the money I spend in an interest paying account for an extra month means a fair bit more money to spend at the end of the year.

And going to a cash machine and taking out 150 quid doesn`t expose you to a fair risk of being jumped for that cash? Surely it would also expose your card details to a skimming type device, or indeed a loop (or any other method of obtaining a card or card details). You`re just moving the risk here to a cash machine.

And there are also risks associated with carrying large amounts of cash - you`re certainly more likely to be attacked for said cash if people see you withdrawing it from a cash machine.

Palindr?me ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

How about booking cinema tickets on the web - where you have to insert the card you used for the booking into the machine in the foyer in order to print the tickets.

Nope, can't use it for that, or for travel tickets which you have to pick up - the webcard website that I referenced mentions that the card is unsuitable for these sorts of purchases. Of course not a problem if they will post the tickets to your home address. And, of course, it doesn't protect you against a supplier sending the wrong goods, or no goods at all - any more than a bit of real plastic will.

What it does mean is that all the other places, the vast majority that would have my "permanent" credit card details complete with potential access to my full credit limit - just have a number that can no longer be used and could only have been used for a very limited amount to start with. I buy quite a lot online or over the phone and I find that quite reassuring...

Incidentally, it isn't advisable to try to clean glass with the lump hammer, or a claw hammer to screw screws. Nor can a screw driver to the work of a set of Stilsons, strange how there aren't tools that are total purpose.

It isn't strange to learn the credit card tools don't work best in every situation.

what are you doing in here?

The bar is a that-a-way >>>>

uh?

lol

So how do you get cash from an ATM or pay for a meal at a restaurant?

You must have a different lifestyle to myself. My supermarket bill is seldom less that £40 - albeit I don't shop all that often. I pay more than £30 to fill the tank of my car as well. Many days it is true that I will spend less than £10 - or even nothing at all, but there are quite a few days when I need to spend £50 or more in the "real world," and exceptional days where I may wish to buy a high price item from a store rather than over the Internet.

I suppose it *might* be possible to persuade a restaurant to accept webcard numbers as a "customer not present" sale - I've not tried it.

My Cahoot webcard account is now active, so I'll see how many things I can use it for. I usually pay utility bills with card over the telephone, so I guess I could generate a webcard for each of those. There are quite a few things that I guess I could wangle paying over the phone and collecting the goods later - that's how I pay for my wife's car services for example.

In article , Cynic writes

Not just to you, but to everyone else, by the sound of it!

Ok

If you know you are going to a restaurant another alternative is to draw £100 or so in cash...

I don't believe anybody was claiming that a webcard removes all the risk associated with credit/debit card use, but it certainly covers one large area.

But as I`ve already pointed out, this involves a trip to a cash machine, most likely fairly late in the day when it is dark, and the associated personal safety issues resulting from this.

It seems to me that however you pay, cash, credit/debit card, or webcard there are risks. The webcard is activated on the web I presume.

Why not jus' stop spending and let the banks invest oyur money in some engineering projects?

Like shipbuilding.

:)

In article , Simon Finnigan writes

As I've already said, "it works for me"....

Have you ever heard of a hotel that *doesn't* accept cash?

I haven't.

That one can certainly be very difficult without a real credit card.