Stopping a bank transaction

AFAIK you can't stop a credit card transaction. If you could, you'd be able to stop all sorts of things and traders wouldn't know if they were going to get paid or not. You have to deal with the problem after the event.

Rob Graham

Well, you might not be able to *stop* a credit card transaction, but it's a fairly simple matter to reverse it (i.e. to cause a chargeback to be made against the trader). As you say, this would be after the event, but not necessarily a long time afterwards. However, the OP was asking about a situation involving a debit card. In this case, I fear, he can't deal with it after the event in as simple a way as with a credit card, and the only option may be to go through the courts. Do you agree?

You are incorrect in your assumption. If it is a Visa debit card it is covered in the same way as a credit card.

That's a rather bold claim. See below.

Well, what if it's not a Visa debit card? Do you concede that it might then not be covered?

What proportion of debit cards in circulation do you reckon are Visa debit cards, as opposed to just ordinary Switch/Maestro cards linked to a normal current account?

If the proportion is low, as I suspect, then to call me "incorrect" is a bit of an exaggeration if what I really am is "almost correct".

The OP did not specify what kind of debit card he was talking about.

Hi. I gave the details of my VISA debit card, to a third party financial company (not PayPal, but like PayPal).

It's only for $9.95.

I think the third party company is legit. But, anyway, I think the message is that I'd *have* to wait until the $9.95 was taken out of the account, before trying any reversal or whatever.

Doesn't PayPal, and likewise the third party company, have its own payment protection arrangements so that you can use them "with confidence" and would not need to involve protection mechanisms of the card providers which you use to feed money into the PayPal (or other) account?

But similarly, would not the trader want to wait until the money had come out of your TPC account into theirs before releasing the goods (in this case the activation codes) to you? Otherwise *you* could rip

*them* off. The whole point of using payment handling intermediaries is to take the worrying out of any mutual mistrust.

Well, you would think so, but I read someone having a problem with a rogue trader and the third party company did nothing.

Indeed that's true.

But usually, I mean my experience is, that when I've purchased a programme on the internet and use a third party, you get the unlock details within minutes.

The question is all about a right to control the outgoings if one's bank account irrespective of other considerations. The ability to instruct a bank to not allow funds to go out.

I have absolutely no confidence in Paypal's ability to resolve any disputes. The internet is full of horror stories about them, and having had quite a few straightforward transactions, I tended not to believe them. Then I had a transaction go wrong, almost entirely due to Paypal, and their refusal to do anything about it at all was incredibly frustrating and changed my view on them considerably.

Neb

At 12:23:47 on 29/11/2008, Ronald Raygun delighted uk.finance by announcing:

Eh? What makes a Visa debit card 'extraordinary' and its linked current account 'abnormal'?

The internet may be full of horror stories, but for every 1 horror there is and maybe 10 good stories. Paypal refunded my daughter when a rogue trader ripped her and about 50 others off. She got her full 150 back which took about 12 days. The total of the scam was in excess of 30K.......some being owed over 600 and still getting their money back from Paypal. I know because I was emailing the other victims.

Nothing makes its linked current account abnormal, and that's not what I wrote. I had in mind the possibility that such cards might be standalone, i.e. not linked to any normal current account, so that you would be given a monthly bill you would be expected to settle in full each time, as with Amex, for example.

What makes a Visa debit card extraordinary is that it apparently has a protection feature (as near as one can get to an "undo") similar to that usually associated only with credit cards, and not found in "ordinary" debit cards.

Wrong again. You don't have to settle an Amex card in full each month. I am keeping an eye on your posts.

That's not what Amex's terms and conditions say:

1. Payment of Charges a. You must pay all Charges in full when you receive your Card account statement. You must pay us in sterling.

Chris

It depends on whether it's an Amex charge card (the "traditional" Amex card) or an Amex credit card. The latter doesn't need to be settled every month, no more than any other credit card does.

However, the credit cards are branded somewhat differently to the charge cards and, strictly speaking, an "American Express Card" (or Amex card) refers to the charge card product rather than the credit cards - all the credit cards have specific names, often co-branded with other providers (such as Nectar or British Airways) where Amex provides the processing network but the partner's name is the one which appears most prominently on the card.

Mark

At 14:48:38 on 30/11/2008, Ronald Raygun delighted uk.finance by announcing:

You mean a charge card then, not a debit card. All debit cards debit a linked account - hence the name.

Well, arguably the distinction between a charge card and a debit card is somewhat tenuous, but that's really beside the point at issue, which is that debit cards do not in general come with the same protection against rogue traders which credit cards usually have.

Therefore if Visa debit cards do have that protection, they are in that sense "extraordinary". Whether this is because they are standalone I don't know, I was just speculating; my current account linked debit card is non-Visa, it's Maestro, the brand formerly known as Switch.

As far as cardholder protection is concerned, the question is not what type of card it is so much as whether credit has been obtained by use of that card.

If a debit card results in you becoming overdrawn then your are protected in the same way as if you had used a credit card.

Chris

In general you are right, but what was alleged (by Stickems, and I have no reason to disbelieve him) is that Visa have voluntarily agreed to offer equivalent protection with their debit cards even when no credit has been obtained.

At 10:11:05 on 03/12/2008, Ronald Raygun delighted uk.finance by announcing:

If you said credit card instead of debit card, I'd agree. Credit and charge cards both draw against a line of credit. Debit cards debit a current account, which may or may not have an overdraft facility.

Yes.

Visa operate their own chargeback system for debit cards which offers some protection similar to credit cards. Mastercard do not currently offer this protection.