www.iva.co.uk

I've bought a couple of things using my Visa Electron card on websites that don't say they accept Electron. I selected the standard Visa option, and the orders were accepted. I don't know if it'll happen on every website, but HMV and M & S have been ok.

Have done it with Waterstones myself. I guess Visa electron is on the same system as Visa.

That's happened to me too. If it doesn't say Electron I go with Visa debit if that is an option or sometimes it has just Visa and that works too.

I have used it under Visa as well, the only difference I can see according to my Coop welcome pack is it does not guarantee cheques but have no cheque book anyway & i can't purchase Travellers cheques with Visa Electron, maybe it is less usable abroad?

Visa electron should be ok abroad, before i had mine, i had a basic account and i could cash out of a machine abroad, which to be honest suprised me

You cannot guarantee cheques, but that is the same for any basic account (you won't get a cheque book either.)

You can withdraw cash abroad, although i don't think you can use it for purchases as the Co-op restrict it. (Don't quote me on that though). Be careful of charges abroad though, it is likely to be cheaper to withdraw the cash in the UK and change it to currency either in the UK or abroad if needed.

I've used mine to buy from foriegn websites, again there was no visa electron option but it went through okay.

If you are going to use the card abroad I would let the Co-op know first - they monitor card usage quite closely and I've heard about banks (not sure if it was the Co-op or not) stopping cards if they aren't used as normal.

That's true Skippy. The co-op even admit that to make sure you don't get caught up in their "Fraud Prevention" procedures, they advise you call before international usage.

Perhaps they think 'the likes of us' shouldn't be travelling abroad!!!

I tried to use my visa electron card to buy car tyres and thought the sale had gone through only to get an email from the company saying that it had not,but they could accept payment by visa electron over the phone if I liked.

HSBC used to advise letting them know if you were going abroad - that was with a gold Mastercard. It was just so that they knew you were going and wouldn't not authorise any transactions.

I've never had a problem using the visa electron card....as long as there's sufficient funds of course & I've used it abroad.

why is it, if you have had money problems we can only get a visa electron, why not a visa debit card, afterall if you buy something and not enough money in the account it still wont go through

Doesn't seem to matter, we argued this with Nationwide but they still refused to give us anything other than a cashpoint card.