Talk:Solo (debit card)
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[edit] General
What does "it can only be used electronically" mean? - Joolz 23:55, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- From their website, purchases in person are allowed but have to be run through the authorisation system. In all cases, transactions are greenlighted only when enough money is known to the system to exist in the customer's account to fund the purchase. E.g., there is no float period, and transactions are not permitted if there should be a system failure. knoodelhed 09:56, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Ok after cooling down I realised what was bugging me: the statement that an unauthorised transaction could not take place. Even qualifying it with "usually" was not unacceptable, as it gives the misplaced perception that an unauthorised overdraft cannot take place without a lot of effort.
In fact it is very easy to go into overdraft, particularly with the UK Banking Industry's obsession to delay application of transfers. It's like writing a cheque. A cheque will bounce if funds are not available in an account, but it's very easy to withdraw the cash out of your account before the holder of a cheque submits it for fulfilment.
I think, in the interests of informed public consumption, what has been written is accurate - that Solo funds are earmarked. But it needs to be stressed that an overdraft is still possible due to time mismanagement of an account.
- Trivial example: Account balance £20. Cash machine reports £20 balance, £20 available. Spend £10 in shop on card. Cash machine again, reports £20 balance, £10 available. Further queries for authorisation will report only £10 available. The authorisation happens first, then the funds are transferred later. That's why the railway network does not accept solo - when you're stuck on a train, you've got no means of conducting the authorisation, and thus cannot actually guarantee the funds (I have successfully used an overlimit credit card to buy a ticket while in transit). In many cases, if you do get over your limit, it is usually restricted to the buffer zone that the bank provides as a matter of course. My experience with HSBC has been that they will happily allow you to go overlimit with Switch (if you're not back in your limit by close-of-play, transactions that evening and the following day are refused), but will authorise low-value Solo transactions that keep you within the buffer, and refuse anything higher. In any case, you still need to cite sources for information about it being supposedly "easy" to run up an overdraft. Chris cheese whine 14:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Train companies
"However, a number of train companies have announced plans to bring Solo into wider acceptance" - can we have some hard evidence that this is anything more than wishful thinking, please? There's been no mention on the uk.railway Usenet group, for example. As far as I know the only companies accepting Solo (or indeed Visa Electron) for ticket sales in the UK are Megatrain and Eurostar. 86.132.142.126 04:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
