Oh, I wasn't suggesting that the girlfriend problem would be related to spending the money on the laptop. That would only be a problem if it were a spouse.

No, what I meant was:

"Wow, we're in another country having a big vacation and we're going to travel all over the place. Hey, look what I bought, honey, a new laptop, so I can play with it the whole time and I don't have to pay attention to you for the whole trip."

Roger:I phoned Lloyds this morning. They have no record of the card being declined.

matthew_k: I called my bank and complained, and they said the transaction had never even reached them and there was nothing they could have done...

In line with your experiences, I have had Visas declined 3 times in the past 4 years while on trips outside the US. In each case, my righteous paranoia led me to leave the merchant and call the respective Visa issuer within 10 minutes. In each case, they said the card was fine.

Merchants have variable hookups to Visa, whether through a gateway from their point-of-sale system, a service bureau, a direct dial, or whatever. As you suggest, I think some of these failed attempts to validate the credit card never really make it all the way ...and their systems have differing abilities to say something intelligent, so they just say DECLINED!

In part due to this I carry 2 Visas, but I always try to keep enough cash to get me back to the airport if things get dicey!

No need to apologise! It was just a rather impressive shopping list, speaking of which, I must remember not to be so nosey in future.

I wonder how many other empeggers there are in the north (west) maybe we could organise a little gathering sometime. I'm too impatient to wait nearly a whole year for Amersfoort!

manager spent 30 (thirty) minutes on the phone, they declined my card.

Both of my credit cards have my picture right on the card.

Would this type of card have made a difference in your situation?

tanstaafl.

"...I don't have to pay attention to you for the whole trip..."

Heh. I like to think I'd be nicer than that. I sold it to her on the basis that we could use Starbucks wireless to plan the rest of the trip -- we've so far only planned out the stay in SF.

The other reason I wanted it was so I could off load the photos from my camera occasionally -- a 128Mb CF card doesn't stretch that far.

Besides, she does karate, so I'm definitely going to be paying attention .

It might have done. I think if I'd used a form of ID familiar to the guy in the store (i.e. my passport), they'd probably not have checked with VISA, and there wouldn't have been such a problem.

Only a couple of card issuers in the UK support photos at the moment, though. Mine isn't one of them.

Heh. I like to think I'd be nicer than that. I sold it to her on the basis that we could use Starbucks wireless to plan the rest of the trip -- we've so far only planned out the stay in SF.


LOL. I'd get glares just for suggesting that

I prefer my debt to only be on large things, like my car.

There's where we differ. I made a trip to New Hampshire a year ago (to pick up the ShoWagon) and I took $200 cash with me. I am now down to the final $10 of that $200 in my wallet.

This is because everything I buy goes on my credit card, even $2.95 purchases at the auto parts store.

However, I have an absolutely inviolable rule: If I do not have money in the bank to cover the purchase, I don't make the purchase. I have no idea what the interest rate on my credit card is, as I have never paid interest -- the bill is paid in full every month.

I have saved all my credit card bills for the last 10 years or so, and thus I can tell you what just about every nickel I have spent has been for. It is very nice to get a monthly summary of everything I have spent money on.

A credit card when used properly is not a spawn of the devil -- it is a useful money management tool.

tanstaafl.

when I worked at comphell a couple years ago we were supposed to call in everything over a certain dollar amount. I can't remember what the amount was but I remember it being pretty low.

Flowers and chocolates? What kind of crap is that. Yes I'm a woman but I guess not an average one Flowers are best left growing in the ground and I don't like candy much at all, after you give it up you lose the taste for it.

If I had a boyfriend, I would not say anything about what he bought, that's his business and his money.

Hey, Baby. You busy this weekend?

Oh, I guess we're a little too long distance for it to work.
Oh, well.

Ah too bad because I am free this weekend

Ha! Now that would be a first for this board

This is because everything I buy goes on my credit card, even $2.95 purchases at the auto parts store.

Actually, we don't differ all that much, we just use different means to accomplish the same ends. I use my debit card on almost everything, and that is directly tied to my checking account. I get the same monthly report, and an almost instant report online. I do use the ATM quite a bit, but that money is almost always spent on low cost food trips.

I, like you, keep debt to a minimum with daily things. My new computer system was bought with a touch or credit, but thats due to my delayed selling of my old LCD monitor.

I typicially use my $200 credit card for gas, and other small things. I tend to pay a random amount off every month, thus allowing the credit card company to earn some money off of me, but not a ton. This, combined with my car and motorcycle credit marks should put me in a good position to buy a house next year. The fact that my bank offered me up to $25,000 on a new vehicle makes me feel pretty good that my credit file is doing just fine. (And it was at a low interest rate too).

Didn't Microsoft man Gates meet his wife on the internet?

Laura: Does a girlfriend have a right to get upset because her boyfriend bought himself a toy? Gee, I wouldn't think so.....
I would hope that she wouldn't care.


Wfaulk:The right? No. The likelihood? Definitely. After all, that's money he could have been spending to get her perishables like flowers and chocolates.


Um, I'm with Laura here. I really don't care how my SO spend his money. His businees, not mine. I can remember on one occasion a guy I was dating complained about my spending habits.. I got rid of him fairly soon after that. Then again, I've run into men who had a problem with me picking up the check. Never went out with them again either,


And IMO, flowers and chocolate suck. Especially flowers. And I got tons of those at my old job. I can actually remeber asking why the [censored] men did this, considering it was the week of my birthday and there had to be at least $400 worth of them around my office. Waste of money, almost as bad as Valentines Day (crock of [censored]).

wfaulk:Are you sure you're a woman?

Last I checked, yeah, I am. Maybe this is why the bulk of my relationships end in disaster.l Who knows.

Was that the same internet that he said was a fad and would never catch on?

Was that the same internet that he said was a fad and would never catch on?

Or the one that the chief technical honcho at British Telecom told us in a lecture, at an international business conference, would be providing DVD movies on demand by now?

I only believed him because he had an Empeg in the montage of technical advances behind him , as he spoke!

I guess north (west) doesn't include us folks in the far north (west) like Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Or does it? Much easier to get to England than Holland from here:-)

Oh, I dunno - Edinburgh/Schiphol is only 49 quid one way with EasyJet. Makes it nice and easy to get to Amersfoort for the next meet

The more the merrier! I wouldn't mind trying to organise something, as long as there is sufficient interest. Nothing on the scale of Amersfoort though...

. I use my debit card on almost everything, and that is directly tied to my checking account.

I was using my debit card quite a bit until I got nervous about leaving that number in lots of stores and restaurants. Granted the chances for fraud are still low, but the debit card doesn't provide the same protection that Visa/MC do. So now, I just use it for ATM and maybe at the gas pump.

The more paranoid I get the more I want to return to a pure cash model. Part of it is the whole tracking aspect. When Radio Shack asks my name, I love telling them "Johnny Cash". Oh, and I won't tell Doug that I get really wound up when (with cash in hand) I get stuck behind somebody charging a $1.65 cup of coffee at Tully's and the POS credit card reader won't work!

> A credit card when used properly is not a spawn of
> the devil -- it is a useful money management tool.

I use credit cards in the same way you do. All my spending goes on it, and it is automatically paid in full every month. I never pay interest and I can get cards with loads of benefits and extras and not care that they have a high interest rate.

Because I rarely carry more than about £30 cash, I carry three cards, one of each type, just in case there is ever a problem; and it has saved me from embarrassing situations in restaurants more than once. Of course when I call the card issuer later, they claim never to have received the request.

but the debit card doesn't provide the same protection that Visa/MC do.

I do get a bit worried about this, but my current solution is to just keep enough money for what I expect to spend in my checking account it's linked to. The rest sits in my savings account, and a quick online session or ATM transaction can raise that. I wish there was better security on debit cards though. Because for me, it was my only way of ordering an empeg back when the Mark 1 shipped. The world requires that people have a credit card number, but are unwilling to risk giving one to someone with no credit (not bad credit mind you), and who dosen't have thousands in student loans.

I do get a bit worried about this, but my current solution is to just keep enough money for what I expect to spend in my checking account it's linked to.

Part of recent paranoia comes from the fact that my employer moved to monthly (Ugh!) direct-deposit payroll and I have several automatic payments from that account on the 5th of the month. I had nightmarish visions of someone cleaning me out on the 3rd-4th!

Coming in a bit late here, but my boss recently used the company credit card in Hong Kong to but a Sony Vaio, Nikon digi camera and another expensive item. Needless to say it was cancelled as it has only ever been used in the UK for smallish things.

They wanted a signed letter from him to reactivate it and didn't really care that he was in Australia and wouldn't be back for at least six months! I think we got the company secretary (his dad) to write to them to authorise it's reactivation and let them know it would be used in Australia a bit in the next few months.

I'm with Lloyds TSB and they have been pretty good - I've got a graduate account which has some neat benefits (interest free overdraft etc.) but the main annoyance is the excessive queues in the local branch when I need to visit (mainly wire transfers)

I have just got a cahoot card because I was told a few months back that fraudulent transactions on a Visa debit card are an b'stard to clear - you lose the money until *they* get it back which can take many weeks.

Gareth

When Radio Shack asks my name, I love telling them "Johnny Cash".

Oh, that's a good one. I'm gonna use that one.

Johnny Cash

Probably best if you dressed in black, for identity purposes - these VISA guys are bright cookies, but if they ask your dress code, it'll ring all the right bells.

Yeah, I do that all the time. When the ask my name I just say Cash without any intonation whatsoever. Some type it in and some get what I mean and just skip it. One moron joked back "Not Johnny Cash is it?". Yeah. That's it. Just let me pay and leave as soon as possible, you MORON.

I work in a similar way (though I normally pay for things under a fiver or so in cash). And I know I'll never pay interest on my card - after being stiffed for ten quid or so by being on holiday and missing the payment date by one weekend, I got a direct debit on it. The card company provides full-balance direct debit if you ask for it, but they only promote the minimum-payment DD.

Last time I went to the USA, I had $10 in change left over from the previous trip. I had to make an effort to spend that much cash in the month I was there!