Alan O’Regan writes:
“This may be a dumb question but An Post doesn’t seem to want to answer me. What is the reason credit cards can’t be used to buy foreign currency in post offices? I can’t seem to find a good reason online.”
Anyone?
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Because that’s not the way we do things in the Post Office Alan.
Next.
Alright Alan, you are going on holidays/abandoning the country.
We get it.
Jaysus.
fraud. If the credit card bounces the post office won’t find out for a week or two. by which time you’ll likely have left the premises…
Correct. The UK Post Office is the same. No foreign exchange or postal orders other than by cash payment. Unlike An Post, that will take a debit card, in the UK they won’t take plastic at all.
This is wrong actually, I live in the UK and was able to use my debit card in the Post Office for foreign exchange providing I had photo ID with me.
When was that, I was told that was no longer a requirement for transactions under £500 in September
Ha! Also, makes sense.
Yup but why wouldn’t thye explain that
Two issues.
1: There’s a % charge to the retailer on credit cards and a fixed fee on debit cards.
2: It is, effectively, a cash advance so your credit card supplier would be within their rights to insist on charging a cash advance fee and interest immediately, depending on your card contract.
Seems pretty simple to me – if you could buy cash directly with a stolen credit card, you’d have the perfect money laundering scheme. No surprise to me that An Post wouldn’t allow it.
more to the point, buying foreign currency – as in, i’m going to sod off to another country as soon as you hand over the wedge.
+1
Same reason you can get ‘cashback’ with a debit card, but not a credit.
May I commend An Post for their patience.
You really are a strangely compliant obedient little serf.
*splutter*
Coming from a crank like you just makes that all the funnier, thanks :)
Ha ha ha, Big Post keeping the little guy down again eh! Wake up sheeple!
Not being smart, do they have to tell you why they don’t provide a particular service like this?
I ain’t saying nothing
Not at all but even ‘we don’t have to tell you’ is some kind of an answer.
In fairness, that is sort of implied in the two polite and informative messages.
So whenever we ask a question we should be happy with the answer ‘because’?
Judging by people’s answers it seems to be both a % charge and card fraud thing. Both perfectly logical answers.
A lot of the time the communication department are told not to publicly make statements in case they say it slightly wrong. We all know social media is a harsh judge – to protect themselves an Post are presumably just using a stock answer.
Given this guy was a big enough whinge to go to broadsheet, had they said fraud he’d probably be on claiming An Post called him a fraudster.
You want to buy cash on credit? Good luck finding anyone who will agree to that
That’s called a loan, Jay. Lots of people give them all the time.
over the counter? without security or background checks? doubt it
Pretty sure you can do it at foreign exchange at the airport
Yep you can
Presumably they charge more than An Post to cover the risk & credit card charge involved
I’m surprised any An Post staff member was capable of writing so coherently when drunk
sure, the job-bridge scheme is the saving of an post – them lads simply can’t afford to drink on the job.
Ha!!
Counter number 4 please.
Life is full of unanswered questions…
Like when my mobile broadband provider decided to stop offering unlimited data on my dongle thingy.. The only honest answer I got from someone in customer care was, coz they want to make more money from you. That’s usually the answer to most questions..
It’s an honest answer at least
I prefer straight up answers like that, and they should be used all the time.
it’s better than when stock exchange listed companies use phrases like “we care” and “customer first”…. phrases which will be banned from use by corporations in Clampers country !! ….someday…
Ah living the dream.
Where a company couldn’t create another little sub-company under another name to take the fall for it.
Ah living the dream.
Yeah, U.S. companies are the worst for using the inane business slogans.
I suppose you have to go along with it.. ‘we care’ and all that malarky. They can’t exactly say, we could barely give a fupp like.
I had a similar problem on time trying to buy a TV license with my credit card (VISA in this case). Similar response: they only can accept VISA Debit.
Not sure if it is policy, technical or (as mentioned above) fraud related, but to my mind, not a real issue.
An Post only accepts cash or cash-like, presumably to keep their books straight. It’s the same reason you can’t buy the Lotto with a credit card.
They don’t accept debit cards from banks other than AIB which is weird.
SPAR on Camden st won’t let you buy cigarettes on credit card (the lady thought my debit card was a credit card) but the staff didn’t know why, although I could buy other stuff apparently. Are credit cards being squeezed out by retailers, is it a secret revolution. All these arbitrary rules stress me out!
The profit margin on cigarettes is pretty low.
Credit card usage incurs a charge for retailer.
?????????
No profit.
Exactly that.
You might need to check this; but most of us in France just use a cash machine to get money from Britain and get commercial rates.
I don’t see why you would want to buy sterling before travelling and also travelling with lots of cash means that, if you get robbed, it’s gone.
They did answer you – you can only purchase foreign currency with a DEBIT card – your Mastercard is a CREDIT card.