Contactless card limit (UK)

[caradoc]

49 minutes ago, Not Captain Kernow said:

 

Totally untrue.  The card issuer does NOT guarantee you your money.  If the card turns out to be stolen and it was used in a contactless transaction, the card issuer will charge it back to the retailer, and in addition hit them with a £25 chargeback fee.  Rest assured, the only people who never lose out are the card issuers...

 

 

That is utterly unfair - How can the retailer be expected to know when a contactless card being used is stolen, especially as there may not even be a human being at the point of sale (TfL ticket barriers for example) ?

 

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

That is utterly unfair - How can the retailer be expected to know when a contactless card being used is stolen, especially as there may not even be a human being at the point of sale (TfL ticket barriers for example) ?

 

Unfair it may be but that is how it is.  

[ejstubbs]

5 hours ago, Not Captain Kernow said:

The fees for accepting cards can often be a percentage, but also a fixed per item transaction fee.

 

ISTR that when debit cards were first introduced they had a fixed transaction fee (20p springs to mind? - not sure how that compared to cash handling fees) whereas most/all CC transactions at that time were % based (although I suspect with a floor, or fixed fee + %).

 

In any case, a retailer's transaction fees can vary depending on the commercial arrangement in place between the retailer and their acquirer, which in turn will depend amongst other things on the size of the retailer i.e. the amount of business that they are going to put through the acquirer.  Each acquirer will have some baseline fee structures that small retailers will have no option but to accept (or else go to a different acquirer - but if the acquirer is also their bank then that might mean switching banks, which creates another hurdle)  - but for the big players these things are negotiable.

 

Mind you, it's a fair while since I was anything like actively working with card transaction acquirers.  Contactless was unheard of at that time: the "big thing" everyone was trying to make happen was "smart " and stored value cards - anyone remember Mondex?

[57xx]

15 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

That is utterly unfair - How can the retailer be expected to know when a contactless card being used is stolen, especially as there may not even be a human being at the point of sale (TfL ticket barriers for example) ?

 

 

It is how it has been for years for online transactions. It's been a long while since I was part of our Finance dept at work. I used to deal with the IT side of POPs (Proof Of Purchase) requests for credit cards from the banks. In the old old days, it used to be a case of send a copy of the signed credit card slip, then when it went to PIN, send a copy of the receipt. Then for online sales the banks said "Any customer not present transactions that get disputed - tough, we're automatically siding with the customer". As with everything on credit cards (look at your APR on them, did they ever drop them to match the all time record low BoE interest rates - did they f*^k), it's always stacked towards the banks.

[Jonboy]

On the other hand what is the alternative? Retailers always have the right to refuse transactions and it is only since chip and pin came in that vigilance, signature checking etc. by the seller stopped being a big part of the paperwork and training retailers were supposed to provide their staff, that came with a pdq machine.

I am lucky to work in a low risk of fraud area as our goods are generally low value and often require other bits to make usable/worthwhile. Higher risk businesses just cost it in as another expense, same as shoplifting, cctv, alarms etc.

 

 

 

[caradoc]

1 hour ago, 57xx said:

 

As with everything on credit cards (look at your APR on them, did they ever drop them to match the all time record low BoE interest rates - did they f*^k), it's always stacked towards the banks.

 

Although with contactless card fraud it is also stacked towards the customer (who after all is the person who lost/mislaid/had stolen their card) and totally against the blameless seller !

 

[dvdlcs]

A thought that came to mind after reading the recent batch of comments:

 

If you don't want to touch the keypad in the supermarket, would the end of a pen (or something similar) make a suitable stylus for that operation?

 

In Australia, I believe it is no longer allowed to insist on a minimum spend when paying with plastic, nor to charge an additional fee for doing so, but some places - a couple of local charities - still do.

[melmerby]

On 28/03/2020 at 18:18, caradoc said:

 

That is utterly unfair - How can the retailer be expected to know when a contactless card being used is stolen, especially as there may not even be a human being at the point of sale (TfL ticket barriers for example) ?

 

When we had a guest house, we took credit & debit cards, there was no contactless payment yet in operation.

However we were charged a penalty fee if we took a transaction without chip & pin*.

Considering at the time many overseas countries hadn't adopted chip and pin, we had to stump up with foreign guest transactions or refuse bookings.

* The excuse was that everywhere was chip & pin so accepting a card without was effectively a fraudulent transaction.

 

As usual the merchant pays for the bank's lack of flexibilty.

BTW we had a fixed fee per debit card transaction and a percentage fee for credit cards as a result we preferred debit cards for larger amounts and credit cards for smaller ones. (The reverse of many retailers!)

 

The banks never lose, they will come out of this much richer.

[JohnDMJ]

On 28/03/2020 at 16:55, Metr0Land said:

 

AFAIK there's no law that says they can't set a minimum.  The tricky bit is that differing card issuers have different rules about whether you can/can't and/or what that lower limit might be.

 

Corner shops argue that the amount taken by the card issuer is too high to make it worthwhile on small purchases though most card issuers refute this saying that as it's a pct of purchases it's irrelevant.

 

In January 2018, the law changed to make it illegal to charge a fee (surcharge) for using a card to make payment. However, as I understand it, a minimum amount is legal; it just depends on how much the retailer values their customers!

 

Example: last time I fancied some Chinese food, I enquired of my local take away their minimum card purchase; as it was double the price of what I wanted, I walked out, not carrying sufficient cash.

 

I do prefer the Swiss (and, it seems, Australian) system whereby if the machine and its support system decides it needs to verify it's you, it does not ask for the card to be inserted, it simply asks you for your PIN.

Edited March 30, 2020 by JohnDMJ