Using Visa Debit Card to pay for car from UK

ruaneg

It seems that the consensus is that using a payment service such as transfermate, is the most recommended way of paying for a car when importing from UK.

However, it seems for my BOI Visa Debit card i get the visa exchange rate which always seems to be at least .01% better than transfermate quotes.

https://www.visaeurope.com/making-payments/exchange-rates

There is also a maximum €11.43 transaction charge from the bank. There is no limit on it either.

Am i overlooking something?

Atlantic Dawn

As far as I know €1500 is the max limit per single transaction and a daily limit of €2500, regardless of funds present.

ruaneg

http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057644213

I keep reading about the supposed limit on sticky UK import thread, so perhaps a number of banks do have it. However, for anybody with bank of ireland, using a visa debit card is seemingly significantly cheaper than using a service like transfermate.

colm_mcm

I thought BOI had a limit, they did a few years back anyway.

bazz26

I think they nearly all have a limit on debit cards as it's a security thing.

ruaneg

I rang BOI, asked them on twitter and here on boards.ie. Got the same reply from them all.

http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057644213

Hi Gary,

There's no maximum limit on purchases made using your Visa Debit card, however, some retailers may set their own limits or may require further authorisation for larger amounts. This is requested through the retailers merchant services.

Thanks,

Sharon

K.Flyer

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

As far as I know €1500 is the max limit per single transaction and a daily limit of €2500, regardless of funds present.

Nope, spent well more than both of those amounts in one day while out of the country with no issue.
Although thinking about it now, I think it would have been more secure had there been a need for pre - authorisation for such large amounts.

kerten

I guess there is a upper limit for single transaction with BOI visa debit card but you can have multiple transaction to go around that. Happened to me it in Harvey Norman when I was buying a sofa set.

I would be so surprised if fraud department doesn't ring you in case of consecutive transactions from hard to recognize merchant at max transaction limit.

ruaneg

I bought the car yesterday using by Band of Ireland Visa Debit. 21000 euro went through fine no need to call bank etc.

Sterling rose the a few days before, and while the exchange rate was better than the rate offered to me on Monday, the transfermate rate was better on Wednesday. Might of saved 50euro with trnasfermate on Wednesday, but to be honest it seems to me pretty random which one will be better on any given day.

Ivefoundgod

Just to clear this up, BOI have no limits and I would suspect neither do the other banks however the retailers POS machines DO have limits on how big a transaction they can take called a floor limit. Most big dealers know about this and have theirs set appropriately but you do occasionally encounter places which don't have a high limit on their POS device and can't accept a payment (though they'll almost always blame your bank).

CiniO

ruaneg wrote: »

I bought the car yesterday using by Band of Ireland Visa Debit. 21000 euro went through fine no need to call bank etc.

Sterling rose the a few days before, and while the exchange rate was better than the rate offered to me on Monday, the transfermate rate was better on Wednesday. Might of saved 50euro with trnasfermate on Wednesday, but to be honest it seems to me pretty random which one will be better on any given day.

Can you reveal how much sterling did €21,000 gave you?
I'm asking about exact figures to see what the exchange rate actually was for that way of payment.

ruaneg

The exchange rate i got on 08/09 was 0.833 + 12e bank transaction fee.

Transfermate offered me 0.841 the same day.

It was too late to use transfermate by that stage.

On 06/09 the visa rate was 0.834 but the transfermate rate was 0.829. Euro got stronger over the two days which seemed to be very noticeable in the transfermate rate offered, whereas the visa rate didn't budge much.

millington

I used my BOI Visa Debit to pay for a car about 6 months ago. I did inform the bank in advance to be sure but there was no problem.

homer1982

I used my BOI visa debit card a year and a half ago for £12,500, but I couldn't pay in the one transaction for some reason when told I would be able to my BOI. I had to pay in 4 instalments and each cost about 11EUR. I'd call BOI first to clarify and tell them what amount you are going to be transferring