MasterCard What Now?

Well, surprise, surprise. It seems that the Clydesdale Bank shifting me from a Maestro card to a MasterCard Debit card does have some added advantage after all. It could be, without a hint of irony, the greatest single advantage ever in the history of banking. Yes friends it seems that a great swathe of online retailers don’t even have an OPTION for a MasterCard Debit card. A few, like Amazon, have got a MasterCard option to be sure, but does that option cover both credit and debit varieties, or only the credit ones? Some types of services are restricted specifically to debit cards. The National Lottery website won’t accept the card because it believes it’s a credit card, and their rules prevent people using credit cards on the site as party of their, very responsible, gambling policy. I’m not sure about Play.com right now because their site doesn’t have a drop down box to describe the card type. I guess I’ll just have to plug the card details in and hope for the best next time I try to order something.

Well I’m sure it’s an advantage somehow…

Activation Stations

Is anyone else sick of this “card activation” crap from the banks? I can see the reasoning behind phoning up and saying that you’ve received your card in principle, but really it just seems a thinly veiled excuse to try and peddle unwanted crap. I phoned up today to activate my new Clydesdale Bank MasterCard Debit Card that they so excitedly heralded in the letter I received a few weeks ago. Low and behold the number doesn’t go through to the Clydesdale call centre, but to third party: a company by the name of CPP. The operator on the end of the line was pleasant enough, but I couldn’t help but wonder at the irony of a third party being involved as a go between for confirming receipt of my card. I presume, and sincerely hope, that CPP have only very limited access to account information because it seems to me there’s little difference between phoning them up, and getting Manky Jimmy the town layabout to phone the Clydesdale on my behalf.

The first time I had to call one of these things I didn’t even realise that I wasn’t talking to the Clydesdale Bank itself. Well not until the real reason for having to go through a third party manifested itself. CPP are in the business of providing card insurance and identify fraud insurance policies. As soon as the operator has dispensed with the two second job of asking for your name, address and date of birth to activate your card they launch straight into the sales script. The worst element of this badly disguised thing is that the bank gives you no alternative manner to activate your card. If you don’t call, and set yourself up for the sales pitch, then you’ve automatically shot yourself in the foot because your original card will stop working within six weeks of the new one being issued. In the meantime you’re stuck because the new one won’t work until you phone to activate it.

Now all credit to the CPP operators as they stop the pitch, wish you a merry Christmas as and ring off as soon as you tell them you’re not interested, but I wonder how many people have sat and listened, or even taken out the policies simply because they thought they were dealing with one of those “nice folk at the bank.”

My dearest banks, I appreciate that card activation is an important safeguard, but could you do it without the involvement of a third party and the associated hard sell.

Please?

The Maestro Is Dead

After years of faithful service, and a few odd hiccups, it seems that the Clydesdale Bank has finally decided to retire their poor old Maestro cards. I’ve just got a letter through the door telling me that I can expect to receive a shiny new MasterCard Debit Card through the post in the near future.

I’m not sure what the immediate advantages are to me as the main selling point on the accompanying leaflet seems to be the fact that I can use it in millions of places around the world. Not much use when I’m a famously insular Scot that refuses to go anywhere that I can’t walk to in a day. I’ve been through the leaflet twice and I can’t see any other advantage mentioned so I guess that’s my lot.

Not entirely sure why Clydesdale have chosen to change this as Maestro is operated by MasterCard anyway so in effect it’s the same service… Isn’t it?

Amazing Rewards Inside

Barclaycard seem to be getting pissed off. I’ve just got a letter today telling me that I’m a lucky man. My Graduate Barclaycard has now been upgraded to a wonderful new Barclaycard Cashback. I assume this is because I’ve not actually bought anything with my current card since 2006 and have just recently finished paying off the last of the outstanding balance. I suppose it’s my own fault for listening to people when they told me I should keep it in case of “emergencies”. If I’d gotten rid of the card in the first place

The letter is a big glossy mail shot written in a friendly and encouraging tone with details of all the amazing features of my new card. The top line is a blazing azure headline that reads “Good News – You’re Being Upgraded”.

First of all I get an amazing 1% cashback on the first £20,000 of purchases I make each year and 0.5% cashback after that.

Double cashback on contactless purchases.

They’ll also lower my purchase APR to 21.4% and give me 0% on any balance transfers that I make until September 2010 (3% fee of course).

They also gave me a £10 House of Fraser voucher…

So in very simple terms I’m to be highly excited by a card that rewards me with virtually nothing unless I spend a huge amount. Additionally I would have to instantly pay off all the balance as soon as the statement arrived or my diminutive cashback “reward” would instantly be dwarfed by the amount added on to my account in interest.

I think this upgraded card will be joining it’s pal in the drawer.

A Lesser Burden

Well today marks the end of an era. After a lot of blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice I’ve finally cleared the entire outstanding balance on my Barclaycard. As we speak the last payment is making its electronic journey from my account to Barclays and I’ll at last be free of the indentured slavery of consumer debt.

I immensely regret having ever allowed myself to be talked into getting a credit card. I feel it’s done nothing but drain away my limited funds since the day and hour it first dropped through my letter box. I regret it, but the decision had to be made. When I first got the thing I was struggling along on my grant and student loan. I didn’t have much spare cash and I needed to pay the rent. I remember my flatmate telling me it was fine, I just had to use the cash advance from the card to pay the rent, and then pay the card back once I got my next grant or loan instalment. Seems simple doesn’t it? What he neglected to remind me was that his parents were FUCKING LOADED and paid off his credit card every month FOR HIM. I on the other hand suddenly found myself with a credit card, and not enough money to cover it and to pay for food, books and all the other things essential to university life.

As I was new to the idea of credit and magically invented money I made a lot of classic mistakes. I used it to get cash from ATMS, and spent years only paying the minimum payment amount which was nothing compared to the outstanding balance. Eventually I reached a point where I couldn’t use the card any more even if I had wanted to because to do so would keep taking me over my limit. I owed about £3,500 and it was round about that point that I resolved to be rid of the damn card forever.

That was about three years ago, and I’ve been slowly but surely paying, paying and thrice paying to get rid of the damn thing at the rate of a hundred bucks a month. That might not sound like much, but I’m also paying out a hundred bucks to Cahoot for the flexible loan that I took out with them when I walked out of my job at Abbey National after a fortnight. I don’t know many people that could soak up the loss of two hundred quid a month and not feel some kind of pain from it.

It’s done now, but I keep wondering what I could have done with all the cash I’ve poured down the drain over the last ten years or so.

Let me out officer I promise I’ve learned my lesson.

Hauns Aff Ma PIE!

I was doing a bit of financial investigation today with my online banking system and worked out a distressing fact about my money. I won’t get into the actual figures but in 2008 almost a quarter of the money that I’ve spent has gone on paying off my credit cards and my infamous Cahoot flexible loan. In true office worker style I’ve rigged up a pie chart that gives a basic breakdown of my finances for the year.

The coding is fairly straightforward. Rent is the rent on my flat which is by far the biggest chunk Messages cover’s food etc. and bills covers the electricity, council tax, TV license, phone bills and broadband etc. Cash covers the times I’ve been to an ATM and withdrawn money. The debt heading covers the infernal credit cards and loan. Extras are basically anything that isn’t needed for day to day survival. It’s disheartening to see that even after a year of making a concerted effort to diminish the damn thing it’s still swallowing a sizable chunk of my income. Hopefully 2009 will be the year that shrinks this to a far more acceptable size.

Huzzah! Cash Flow Restored

Well despite my fears, and my vitriolic rant last night, my problems with the Mastercard Securecode were remarkably easy to fix. All it took was a phone call to the Clydesdale Bank call centre, where I had to answer a couple of security questions and everything was reset there and then.

The system works.