London Banter - View Single Post - How much was a ticket for the underground in the 60s?

Dik T. Winter

In article (Neil Williams) writes:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:08:59 GMT, "Dik T. Winter"
wrote:
How can I give my bank a prior notification that I decide to buy something?

I did it by telephone.

Ok, so I go into the shop, decide to buy something. Go home, wait until
Monday, phone my bank, and go back again to the shop?

In the UK it is also conventional that you notify your bank if you
intend on travelling abroad.

That is not done in the Netherlands at all. It is, in my opinion, a
strange procedure.

Also credit cards are limited in the maximum amount and I think those
gbp7,000 would exceed my limit.

Which is why I used a debit card!

Yes, but that would also be beyond the limit of my debit card.

Note moreover that in the Netherlands most people do not have credit
cards for two of reasons:
(1) It costs money to get a credit card

In the UK it doesn't, or not unless you borrow on it.

So, the situation in the UK is quite different from that in the Netherlands.
And so the use of the different kinds of cards are easily explained.

(2) It is possible that a retailer asks you to pay more if you pay
by credit card

Sometimes this happens in the UK, but not all that often. Minimum
charges by card (credit and debit) are rather more common.

Currently most shops do not have a minimum charge when a debit card is
used. As almost all shops now have the equipment to handle debit
cards and in almost all cases the equipment is directly on-line to
the transaction centre, there is no longer a need for that (the
handling fee is quite small). Formerly for each transaction the
equipment would make a phone call to the transaction centre, which
would take additional money and time.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/