Visa and their insurance?
Visa and their insurance?
Author
Discussion

Dupont666

Original Poster:

22,925 posts

222 months

Friday 12th February 2010
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Im about to buy a lot of stuff over the net from my building work and I know that if I do it using my Visa credit card I have insurance if:

Goods turn up broken
Goods lost
company goes bankrupt
get scammed
etc, etc.

But do I have the same protection now since I have a Visa Debit card too?

Would save a lot of hassle transfering money over to the CC to pay off the card and then rinse and repeat several times.

Timmy35

13,014 posts

228 months

Friday 12th February 2010
quotequote all
No I don't think so. I have a Visa debit card and got a seperate credit card specifically to get the extra cover you mentioned.

James P

3,036 posts

267 months

Friday 12th February 2010
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I'm fairly sure that debit cards do not have the same cover. I think though that the credit card cover applies even if you only use the credit card for a deposit and pay the balance another way.

b2dan

699 posts

230 months

Friday 12th February 2010
quotequote all
I think Visa will cover debit card purchases up to £100 but you really have to push for this.

Dupont666

Original Poster:

22,925 posts

222 months

Friday 12th February 2010
quotequote all
HSBC seem to think its the same for CC and debit card now, but an operator telling me this is not going to be much use when I order £1k of tiles from Italy and some come across broken and I have no come back cause the Operator was wrong, so want to make sure...

Z4monster

1,442 posts

290 months

Friday 12th February 2010
quotequote all
Just found this on the BBC website. Might answer your query.
Visa debit card

A Visa debit card offers significantly better protection for shoppers tham Maestro. Their scheme is called Visa Debit Chargeback and any bank that issues a Visa debit card has to comply with the scheme.

You can claim money back if the goods you buy are damaged, or the product or services are not delivered.

There is no limit on what you can claim. But you have to claim within 120 days of the date you expected the goods to be delivered or the firm going bust.

So this isn't as good as when I use my credit card?

You get better protection if you use your credit card.

The key difference is that when you claim on a credit card under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, the credit card company is legally liable.

But the Visa Debit chargeback scheme is not legally binding, so you don't have any legal redress if you are unhappy.

I have a Visa debit card, but my bank says it hasn't heard of the Chargeback scheme. What should I do?

Unfortunately, a number of Working Lunch viewers have found this.

But a spokesperson for Visa Europe stressed that all legitimate claims that abide by the terms and conditions should be dealt with.

He told us that all banks who are members of the scheme should comply with the rules. The members include Nationwide, Barclays, Halifax, and Lloyds TSB.

So you will just have to insist, or ask to speak to someone more senior.

What if I bought goods outside of the UK, am I still protected?

Yes, in general for Visa debit. There are some small differences in the way the way the rules are applied in some countries, but in general, you should be protected.

Chrisgr31

14,284 posts

285 months

Friday 12th February 2010
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I ordered a bespoke suit from Oliver Woo paid for it on my Visa Debit card. It wasn't ready when it was meant to be, various excuses, eventually turned out they had gone bust.

Phoned the Halifax they said I'd have to claim via Oliver Woos administrator and denied they had to refund. So I wrote to them, and 5 days later the money was back in my account. A friend was buying a camper van from a dealer, paid deposit via Visa debit card. Dealer went bust, and they got their money back from their bank.

So it does work.

bigandclever

14,395 posts

268 months

Friday 12th February 2010
quotequote all
Visa Debit cards will give you similar (but not the same) protection as you get from credit cards through the Consumer Credit Act. Really, it's not a voluntary scheme for the Visa Debit issuing banks, since it's part of the deal, but they sign up to accept debit chargebacks. There is a limitless value you can chargeback but there is a 120 day time limit from the date the goods were supposed to be delivered (or were delivered unsatisfactorily, or from when the company you bought from went bust). You likely wouldn't get money back immediately, since the issuing bank would raise it as a disputed transaction, but you would get it back eventually. It's not law, like the credit act, but it is what all the Visa Europe member banks who issue Visa Debit cards have signed up to.

The 'loophole' (for want of a better phrase) is that if your current account is overdrawn at the time of purchase, for any debit card, then technically this means your transaction was a credit purchase and will be covered under the Consumer Credit Act, so you get the protection that offers. Which, monetarily at least, is less than than limitless amount VE Debit offers, at £30k.