On Mar 28, 2:05*am, MIG wrote:
On Mar 27, 10:09*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:





On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:43:15 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:
One of the attractions of credit cards is that problems such as
fraudulent use can be sorted out easier using a credit card as opposed
to a debit card - and if your current account is cleaned out it will
likely cause you more grief *to get things sorted out than if it was
just your credit card that was fraudulently used. Credit cards also
offer extra legal protection for purchases of goods or services that
cost =A3100+.

This is exactly what I use a credit card for, and is exactly why I
avoid the use of a debit card where possible. *It always gets paid off
at the end of the month, and I have not yet omitted to do this, thus
the convenience comes to me free of charge[1].

I noticed that TheTrainLine now charges for credit cards but not debit
cards.

That's a good reason not to use TheTrainLine I suppose, because I
always used my credit card in the way described above.

Would they actually know if you quoted a Debit Card number in place of
a Credit Card one?

Adrian

On 28 Mar, 15:59, Adrian wrote:

On Mar 28, 2:05 am, MIG wrote:

On Mar 27, 10:09 pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:43:15 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:
One of the attractions of credit cards is that problems such as
fraudulent use can be sorted out easier using a credit card as opposed
to a debit card - and if your current account is cleaned out it will
likely cause you more grief to get things sorted out than if it was
just your credit card that was fraudulently used. Credit cards also
offer extra legal protection for purchases of goods or services that
cost =A3100+.

This is exactly what I use a credit card for, and is exactly why I
avoid the use of a debit card where possible. It always gets paid off
at the end of the month, and I have not yet omitted to do this, thus
the convenience comes to me free of charge[1].

I noticed that TheTrainLine now charges for credit cards but not debit
cards.

That's a good reason not to use TheTrainLine I suppose, because I
always used my credit card in the way described above.

Would they actually know if you quoted a Debit Card number in place of
a Credit Card one?


Yes. AIUI debit cards use a different number range to credit cards.
Whether companies elsewhere in the world would be able to instantly
tell the difference between a UK issued debit and credit card is
another question.

Several companies (in the UK and elsewhere in Europe at least) either
charge a premium for using a credit card (notionally to cover the
extra costs), such as TheTrainline, easyJet and Ikea, or don't accept
them at all, such as the discount supermarket Aldi (and Wikipedia
states that this is the case for Aldi stores in the US as well [1]).
Until only a few years ago Marks and Spencer didn't accept credit
cards.

-----
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi

Yes. AIUI debit cards use a different number range to credit cards.
Whether companies elsewhere in the world would be able to instantly
tell the difference between a UK issued debit and credit card is
another question.

Yes again- having spoken to somebody who works in the fraud risk
department of a bank, the UK is only just moving to a system of having
the same number of digits in a debit card number as the rest of the
world. Prior to that it wasn't possible to use a UK-issued debit card
for online transactions processed abroad as foreign systems wouldn't
accept our account numbers.

In message
Adrian wrote:

On Mar 28, 2:05*am, MIG wrote:
On Mar 27, 10:09*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:





On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:43:15 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:
One of the attractions of credit cards is that problems such as
fraudulent use can be sorted out easier using a credit card as opposed
to a debit card - and if your current account is cleaned out it will
likely cause you more grief *to get things sorted out than if it was
just your credit card that was fraudulently used. Credit cards also
offer extra legal protection for purchases of goods or services that
cost =A3100+.

This is exactly what I use a credit card for, and is exactly why I
avoid the use of a debit card where possible. *It always gets paid off
at the end of the month, and I have not yet omitted to do this, thus
the convenience comes to me free of charge[1].

I noticed that TheTrainLine now charges for credit cards but not debit
cards.

That's a good reason not to use TheTrainLine I suppose, because I
always used my credit card in the way described above.

Would they actually know if you quoted a Debit Card number in place of
a Credit Card one?


Yes, from the number series.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

On 28 Mar, 16:29, Mizter T wrote:
On 28 Mar, 15:59, Adrian wrote:





On Mar 28, 2:05 am, MIG wrote:

On Mar 27, 10:09 pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:43:15 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:
One of the attractions of credit cards is that problems such as
fraudulent use can be sorted out easier using a credit card as opposed
to a debit card - and if your current account is cleaned out it will
likely cause you more grief *to get things sorted out than if it was
just your credit card that was fraudulently used. Credit cards also
offer extra legal protection for purchases of goods or services that
cost =A3100+.

This is exactly what I use a credit card for, and is exactly why I
avoid the use of a debit card where possible. *It always gets paid off
at the end of the month, and I have not yet omitted to do this, thus
the convenience comes to me free of charge[1].

I noticed that TheTrainLine now charges for credit cards but not debit
cards.

That's a good reason not to use TheTrainLine I suppose, because I
always used my credit card in the way described above.

Would they actually know if you quoted a Debit Card number in place of
a Credit Card one?

Yes. AIUI debit cards use a different number range to credit cards.
Whether companies elsewhere in the world would be able to instantly
tell the difference between a UK issued debit and credit card is
another question.

Several companies (in the UK and elsewhere in Europe at least) either
charge a premium for using a credit card (notionally to cover the
extra costs), such as TheTrainline, easyJet and Ikea, or don't accept
them at all, such as the discount supermarket Aldi (and Wikipedia
states that this is the case for Aldi stores in the US as well [1]).
Until only a few years ago Marks and Spencer didn't accept credit
cards.

The number range must also be referred to by supermarket (and pub)
tills when it comes to allowing "cashback" or not.

In message
, at
09:29:38 on Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Mizter T remarked:
AIUI debit cards use a different number range to credit cards.
Whether companies elsewhere in the world would be able to instantly
tell the difference between a UK issued debit and credit card is
another question.

I would be astonished to discover that there wasn't a standard ecommerce
plug-in that identified the kind of card (along with the one that
everyone uses to ensure the checksum is OK). Even if the seller doesn't
deploy one, their merchant services must, so they can tell who to send
the charge to.
--
Roland Perry

On 28 Mar, 17:15, MIG wrote:
On 28 Mar, 16:29, Mizter T wrote:





On 28 Mar, 15:59, Adrian wrote:

On Mar 28, 2:05 am, MIG wrote:

On Mar 27, 10:09 pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:43:15 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T


The number range must also be referred to by supermarket (and pub)
tills when it comes to allowing "cashback" or not.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There is a summary at

http://www.barclaycardbusiness.co.uk/docs/binranges.pdf

On 28 Mar, 16:36, Ianigsy wrote:

Yes. AIUI debit cards use a different number range to credit cards.
Whether companies elsewhere in the world would be able to instantly
tell the difference between a UK issued debit and credit card is
another question.

Yes again- having spoken to somebody who works in the fraud risk
department of a bank, the UK is only just moving to a system of having
the same number of digits in a debit card number as the rest of the
world. Prior to that it wasn't possible to use a UK-issued debit card
for online transactions processed abroad as foreign systems wouldn't
accept our account numbers.


I think the issue you're referring to on concerns Switch debit cards,
which have now been rebranded Maestro, which used a different
numbering system but I believe are now 'switching over' to the
worldwide standard (16 principal digits).

Visa debit cards (aka Visa delta) have always complied with the global
standard, as have their online authorisation only sibling Visa
Electron.

I'm not quite sure what the story is with regards to Switch's online
authorisation only sibling the Solo card and their compliance or
otherwise with regards to the worldwide standard.

Mizter T (Mizter T ) gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Yes again- having spoken to somebody who works in the fraud risk
department of a bank, the UK is only just moving to a system of having
the same number of digits in a debit card number as the rest of the
world. Prior to that it wasn't possible to use a UK-issued debit card
for online transactions processed abroad as foreign systems wouldn't
accept our account numbers.

I think the issue you're referring to on concerns Switch debit cards,
which have now been rebranded Maestro, which used a different numbering
system but I believe are now 'switching over' to the worldwide standard
(16 principal digits).

It's going to be a while yet until that's complete...
looks at own Maestro (not Switch) card
Expires late 2010, 18 digits.

The long digit, in my card's case at least, is just the four-digit issuer
prefix, then the sort code and account number...

Trivia time - it's easy to identify a card type by the first digit.
3-Amex/Diners/JCB, 4-Visa, 5-Mastercard, 6-Maestro.

On 28 Mar, 17:26, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
09:29:38 on Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Mizter T remarked:

AIUI debit cards use a different number range to credit cards.
Whether companies elsewhere in the world would be able to instantly
tell the difference between a UK issued debit and credit card is
another question.

I would be astonished to discover that there wasn't a standard ecommerce
plug-in that identified the kind of card (along with the one that
everyone uses to ensure the checksum is OK). Even if the seller doesn't
deploy one, their merchant services must, so they can tell who to send
the charge to.


One would think that likely for big ecommerce companies, but perhaps
not elsewhere.

I've certainly heard about people using some of the basic debit cards
- Visa Electron and Solo (i.e. the one's that need online
authorisation) - with companies and retailers that notionally
disallowed them, and I'm not just talking about railway booking
offices or ticket machines either. This led me to think that sometimes
perhaps the card number range filtering is implemented badly (or not
at all) by some retailers.

Additionally if retailers are not using online EPOS systems (i.e. if
the details all get sent in batches every so often - or even if the
card is processed manually, old-school style) then the merchant
service provider's systems won't necessarily get a chance to reject
inappropriate cards (if the EPOS machine doesn't already have an
appropriate filter installed).

I'm sure I'm using all the wrong terminology but you catch my drift!