acceptence

[ginger 69]

where is visa electron accepted, in shops i mean, though not online!!!!!!!!!!

[bobinspain]

visa electron is accepted by a large number of retailers in the UK, BUT, when a shop (for instance) accepts payment by this card it swipes the card through a machine then it gets either authorised or declined. if a customer has say �50 is his account and he goes into 5 shops and spends in each shop �45 each transaction will be authorised. the reason behind this is that the electron system is not fool proof, and if a shop accepts this payment and the bank authorises the payment, it is the retailer who may loose out as the bank to charge back the money at a later date if the shoper does not repay money into his account.thereby the shop or retail outlet loses out.hence their reluctance to accept visa electron cards

[stevie21]

As soon as a payment is authorised by the bank, the money is deducted from your available balance (though not forever) so you can't go to 5 shops with �50 in one day as outlined.
The system, as stated, is not foolproof but the example above is not a valid measure of it not being foolproof. If the bank authorise the first payment and authorisation is sought for the other 4 then it's entirely likely that they'll be declined if the bank don't want you to go overdrawn.
In some cases the bank quite like you going overdrawn as they get to charge you lots of fees.

Electron is becoming more and more widely acepted in shops now - it's not as hideous as it used to be.

[bobinspain]

Stevie21 is living in cuckoo land. 1, a visa electron card CAN be used to make several purchases using the same money in a bank account, and then the person CAN go and withdraw the money from his or her bank before the transactions have been paid. i work along side the financial services and i know this for FACT. if you try it ( which i am not saying you should) it will work.

[stevie21]

I'd agree with the "cuckoo land" summary of me but not the description of how an Electron card works. If anyone wants to make their own mind up, go try it.
I don't work alongside the financial services, I work for a bank which issues electron cards.

If someone has a visa delta card (NOT electron) and they spend a small amount then this might be below the shop's "floor limit" and they might not contact the bank for authorisation - they'll just debit the account a few days later. This means that you can spend the same money a few times with a visa delta card. With electron cards, however, every transaction should go through the authorisation process.