Credit card charge

Half-cocked

Not sure if this is the right forum but...

My wife needed a cheque for €5,000 and doesn't have a chequebook. I told her to transfer the money to my current account and I would write the cheque. Anyway, she accidentaly transfered the money to my credit card. No problem, using online banking I transfered the money to my c/a and wrote the cheque (credit card and c/a are with the same bank). I noticed that the €5K appeared on both my c/a and credit card balance simultaneously for 24 hrs but thought nothing of it. Then I got hit with a €75 24hr cash advance fee:mad:

I rang the bank who said it was a legitimate charge. I said no, it was an unsolicited loan of €5,000. I had transfered my €5K to another account. The €5K on the credit card wasn't mine, I didn't ask for it and why did they give it to me? After much arguement they grudgingly agreed to refund the €75 charge.

Beware if you are transfering between credit card and other accounts online that they may try this scam!

seamus

The bank are correct tbh.

It's not their fault that the money was transferred to the wrong account. I don't know where you're getting "unsolicited loan" from. The money was transferred to your credit card. You (effectively) withdrew it as cash from your credit card, which incurs a cash advance fee that you agreed to when you signed up for the credit card.

The €5k on the credit card was yours, it was transferred to you. The reason it appeared in both account for a brief period is because the credit card account balances take 24 hours to update. C/A balances update immediately.

If you had called the credit card services to check your balance, the €5k wouldn't have been there.

She refunded the €75 to get you off the phone, but you weren't entitled to it.

cookie1977

When I went traveliing we used to deposit cash on our mastercard (which had a zero balance) and withdraw it from atm's as we got a better exchange rate then with out ATM cards. We were never charged cash advance as it was our money. But can I ask did you have a balance on your card when the 5000 went in? If so then when you took back the 5000 you then withdrew more money as some of the original 5000 paid off the debt on the card. That's one way you would have been charged a cash advance.

Make sense?

Just be careful in future.

Cabaal

Transferring money to a credit card to then take it off.....very foolish thing to do, even when I was in 2nd year in secondary school many many years ago I knew this would incur fees.

You weren't entitled to any refund, what you did was pretty foolish tbh.
seamus comments are also spot on.

If people don't understand how credit cards work in relation to using them for cash then they shouldn't use them for cash!

jor el

Half-cocked wrote: »

Anyway, she accidentaly transfered the money to my credit card. No problem, using online banking I transfered the money to my c/a and wrote the cheque (credit card and c/a are with the same bank). I noticed that the €5K appeared on both my c/a and credit card balance simultaneously for 24 hrs but thought nothing of it. Then I got hit with a €75 24hr cash advance fee:mad:

If you transferred the money out of your credit card to your bank account immediately after it had been sent to your card, then it wouldn't have even been on your credit card account yet. By transferring money out of it, you were requesting a cash advance, which incurs a fee. When the cash did show up on your credit card, 24 hours later, this was effectively paying the bill, but not covering the cash advance fee.

You should have waited until the balance settled before doing anything, or contacted the bank and told them to reject the payment to your credit card and return it to the source account.

dudara

Moved to Banking & Insurance & Pensions

dudara

Half-cocked

Money was on the credit card for about 3 days before I transferred it to the c/a. Card was always in credit. I understand that I would incur a charge if I had done everything without giving the system time to deal with the traffic through my accounts, but this was not the case.

cookie1977

If your card was in credit then I find it very odd that they charged you for moving your own money off. I expect they realised they made a mistake, didn't want to admit it and so refunded you the charge after you complained.

As I said for 3 months travelling we used our credit card to withdraw money from after we transferred money to it from our bank account and we were never charged a single penny for cash advance. We're with AIB and the mastercard was from AIB too.

Bad form by the bank if what you you describe is accurate.

Half-cocked

I suspect if I were to follow it up I would be told there was some sort of IT glitch that caused it. Only reason I posted in the first place was in to warn anyone else who might have been wrongly charged. I should have given the full details re timescale and credit conditions in the original post to avoid being called foolish and not reading the T&C;)

seamus

cookie1977 wrote: »

If your card was in credit then I find it very odd that they charged you for moving your own money off. I expect they realised they made a mistake, didn't want to admit it and so refunded you the charge after you complained.

I don't know if it's something recent, but a lot of (if not most) card accounts now charge cash advance fees regardless of whether or not the card is in positive or negative balance.
They probably brought it in when they realised that people were taking out cash abroad but the company weren't making any money out of it.

There's also the case that where you take out an amount that causes the account to go into negative, you get charged a cash advance fee on the entire amount.

So if the OP had a balance of €4,990 after the €5k went in, and took out €5k, then they will go €10 into negative and will be charged the full 1.5% on the full €5k.

However, I suspect the former is the case, and the terms of their credit card account state that a cash advance is payable on all amounts, regardless of the balance on the accounts.

cookie1977

No, it's good for people to be aware of this

Half-cocked

Just to clarify, the card was always in credit, when the €5K left, there was still about €120 on it. Also, the 3 days between money in and money out were 3 working days, so no explanation there. As posted above by Seamus, they may have introduced cash charges even when in credit since I signed up many years ago. I must check that one. Thanks.

cookie1977

seamus wrote: »

I don't know if it's something recent, but a lot of (if not most) card accounts now charge cash advance fees regardless of whether or not the card is in positive or negative balance.
They probably brought it in when they realised that people were taking out cash abroad but the company weren't making any money out of it.

There's also the case that where you take out an amount that causes the account to go into negative, you get charged a cash advance fee on the entire amount.

So if the OP had a balance of €4,990 after the €5k went in, and took out €5k, then they will go €10 into negative and will be charged the full 1.5% on the full €5k.

However, I suspect the former is the case, and the terms of their credit card account state that a cash advance is payable on all amounts, regardless of the balance on the accounts.

Thats pretty shocking. Haven't tried this since 2007 but I've no problem with cash advance charges on their money but for taking out my money, absolutely not. Must call AIB later and find out if this is true now on their cards.

The negative thing you spoke of is what I mentioned earlier and again I've no problem being hit up for this too.

seamus

Having a quick look around, BOI charge this fee on all cards, and AIB charge it on their "CLICK" and "be" cards, which are aimed at young people and students (i.e. those most likely to go travelling).

cookie1977

Edit just see your post now Seamus

So called AIB:
Gold Mastercard: No charge for taking your own money
Platinum Visa: No charge for taking your own money
be/click cards: Charged whether it's a cash advance or your own money

Have to say it's a little mean not to apply the rules across the board.

Half-cocked

seamus wrote: »

Having a quick look around, BOI charge this fee on all cards, and AIB charge it on their "CLICK" and "be" cards, which are aimed at young people and students (i.e. those most likely to go travelling).

Mine isn't any of those and I can't find any reference to such charges on my CC companies website. It really is looking like they made a mistake. I find it hard to believe that I would be the only victim of such an error. Normally when there is a glitch like this it effects a whole group of customers.