Using Curve

Tesco is certainly one where I had this happen

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Interesting, perhaps it’s a Tesco + Debit Mastercard issue?

I wonder if anybody with a First Direct or Santander Mastercard has seen it happen?

Tesco + Handelsbanken Debit Mastercard (HDC) = Never had an issue

Tesco + Curve in front of HDC = Double charged more than once

Not sure if that tells you anything

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There must be something about the Tesco system that doesn’t like the Curve (and Monzo) BINs, I suppose?

I actually forgot Handelsbanken existed until you posted that!

:smile: :laughing: not exactly Fintech but it’s great to know I can call a real person, who knows who I am, who is a decision maker, who can exercise judgement and all that old fashioned stuff!!!

I have Starling, I have Chase, I have Curve - but the money that really matters goes into HB

Fair enough!

Do they charge you, though? That would be a dealbreaker for me as I’m not prepared to pay for something that I could get for free (or even get paid to have, as many accounts do).

I think the issue occurs when a retailer processes a hold on funds then captures separately (but not in every occurrence). It looks like Curve sometimes process the capture as a new transaction, leaving the authorisation hold until it naturally expires.

I’ve had it before but the authorisation hold just disappears after a week. More of a problem if your underlying card is a debit card.

Curve as a go-to for me was killed by Amex dropping support early on, followed by Tesco Bank and then RBS Group suddenly charging all Curve backed transactions as cash. Not fun to see a credit card statement covered in unexpected cash charges!

I leave mine linked to Barclaycard who seem less paranoid but it’s one of the weaker cards reward wise, so basically only gets used in the handful of places that only accept debit card.

Also useful tool when paying off my Amex bill in £500 chunks (Amex only let you link 1 debit card, and I prefer to settle my bill using a handful of Halifax debit cards - without Curve I’d have to de-link and assign a new card for each £500 chunk).

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Yes, they do - I can understand why that’d rule them out for many people, you make a very valid point

Credit card issuers that “don’t like Curve” are thankfully still in a minority, but I agree that they undermine the Curve proposition somewhat.

Creation were most severe, by summarily closing the accounts of anybody who have ever used their card via Curve.

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The circumstances where you’d want to change the underlying card? Can you name any reasonable ones? Like, I think I’d just use a spending card to begin with (rewards or something). I don’t see why I’d ever need to change it over, unless it was something like realising that there was a special reward at C merchant or something. But then Curve would mask that and I wouldn’t get the benefit, anyways.

Both of these cards are rewards cards that only earn anything worth using over a debit card via directly purchasing with the merchants. Curve masks this. You will also lose S75 protection, making your cards practically worthless.

You can’t get the relationship of Hanelsbanken for free on the salary any of us here make. We’re not valuable enough, banks don’t offer these to retail customers; it’s why Handelsbanken is able to function relatively unchallenged in all the markets they operate in.

They’re a 1950s relationship bank where you can speak to the local manager over a cup of tea, talk about your finances in more depth and they’ll assess you based on more than AI and some magic stew.

I still earn the points from these cards when used with Curve. The only points you won’t get are those that are merchant specific for Sainsburys and Amazon where you earn the basic rate of 0.25% instead of the promotion one.

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I suppose one example would be when I’ve changed my mind, after the event, and want to use a different card?

Or when I’m not sure which card I want to settle on but I can sort it out later?

Or when my boss says “Nah, put it on the company credit card, instead”, having already paid using my own card. Brownie points abound from that scenario.

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If anti-embarrassment mode has kicked in and switched the payment card from preferred card to another card you may later want to go back to the preferred card (after resolving the issue that caused anti-embarrassment mode to step in - e.g. lack of funds in the account).

Similarly a transaction might take you into your overdraft. This might be undesirable but only noticed after the transaction has happened. You could go back in time to a credit card to bring yourself out of overdraft.

You might also encounter a situation where you fail to get rewards for a transaction due to specific MCC being excluded from rewards scheme. You might then want to switch to a different rewards card where that MCC is not excluded from the rewards scheme.

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Hadn’t thought of these :point_up_2:t4:….:blush:

I also use it to allow transactions through to my credit card without needing to keep Chase topped-up; I can spend without worrying about the Chase balance at all, then top up Chase later and move the transaction across using Go Back in Time.

Obviously this is only for large-ish purchases as I do keep a modest balance in Chase all the time anyway, so small transactions always go through.

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Another use case for GBIT - I just signed up for a new rewards credit card which gives a bonus if you spend a certain amount in the first 3 months. Once the card arrives I believe I will be able to use GBIT to transfer some spending from my old card to my new one, thus helping to meet the spend amount needed to trigger the bonus.

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Clever :relieved:

Clever tweet from Curve imo.

Made me chuckle, as I have a mom who thinks lol means lots of love

Other week, she sent “June Brown has died lol xxx” :man_facepalming:

https://twitter.com/imaginecurve/status/1524691142893264896

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For the want of a more recent appropriate thread…… a question for the Curvists amongst us.

Is there a known issue with adding a Curve card to my eBay account?

(It attaches elsewhere with no drama, including ApplePay)

There should not be an issue adding it to eBay at all, @Graham.

Not that I have Curve attached to eBay. Mine is a credit card, direct.

I used to have it added to Amazon, before Chase added Google Pay compatibility, for the cashback.