Advice on using a credit card for PM purchases?

[Stacktastic]

Hello, I was wondering who uses a credit card to buy PM & goods? 
I own my own business so thats an option, but I was considering getting
and using a credit card to buy a monthly purchase or Precious metals for personal use. 

I will pay it off in fiat & am going to remortgage next year and it should help my credit score. 
I was also wondering if I could somehow pay for private purchases on here or not??
Maybe I can transfer the balance to Paypal?

The second reason is security, especially when buying on Ebay or from Europe. 
Correct me if I am wrong but would it be insured through a credit card. 
Of course I can also use it for other risky purchases like holidays. 

I have a card but i have never used it, so was also wondering what people have. 
I know there are a few cards linked to physical gold also?? 
What would the best strategy be??

Cash back card or something as I don't expect to get into debt. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Stacktastic

[BackyardBullion]

It is a great idea to build up a credit rating for yourself, especially in the build up to a re-mortgage. 

I would check with your credit card providers carefully before purchasing precious metals, I seem to remember some of the lesser known credit card companies classified gold as a cash equivalent transaction and so the interest rates would be very different and often much higher - sometimes not even 0% for the first month like most credit cards. 

Similarly I would imaging charging up your paypal account would be a similar arrangement - best to check with the credit card provider on that too. 

In terms of making payments for private purchases on the forum, that would be totally dependant on the person at the other end. Most people do not have the ability to take a credit or debit card payment and those that do know that there are payment processing fees to factor in as well. In addition, most sellers would prefer not to have the possibility of credit card chargebacks happening. Not saying that is what you will be doing but it is always a possibility for sellers to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous buyers. This is why I tend to only accept banks transfer payments and really only take credit/debit card payments from existing customers I have dealt with a number of times before. 

But, if you have a good provider and you buy from some of the big bullion dealers out there I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to make regular payments and pay them off each month to build your credit score.

[morezone]

I use credit cards for absolutely everything and pay it off each month.  There are two reasons for doing so:

1) I get credit consumer protection (section 75).  I've only ever used it twice and the most recent time was almost 2 years ago.  I ordered a lot of stuff from John Lewis and it shipped in 10 parcels over a weekend.  I only ended up receiving 8 of them on the Monday and tracking was showing these missing parcels as delivered and some of the parcels that were delivered as being undelivered.  Contacted JL and a few days later after investigation and them contacting DHL they were told me they were delivered and weren't going to refund or replace them.  Not sure how they came to that conclusion when tracking clearly showed some were still undelivered.  Contacted Amex and told them the story.  One minute on hold and they refunded me the undelivered amount.  Luckily I've only had to use it twice but there's no point using a debit card when a credit card will do the same job and offer more protection.

2) Cashback.  Only a few bullion dealers actually accept credit cards as payment but when they do it brings the cost down by 0.5% for me.  Not a lot but on a £1k gold coin it's £5.  I use two cards for UK purchases.  A visa which offers 0.5% and Amex which is tiered from 0.5% to 1%.  I will use Amex where I can but for those places that don't accept Amex I use the Visa.  I put all business and personal purchases though them.  My year end was last month on the Amex and I got £800+ cashback.  Visa is currently sitting at £34.35.  At the end of the end it's free money for using a card for purchases which I would either pay cash or use a debit card on.  Makes no sense for me to withdraw cash to spend nor does it make sense for me to have funds sitting in an account waiting to be spent.  All my bank accounts have minimal balances, just enough to cover monthly direct debits etc and the rest goes into a savings account.  When the credit card bill comes I transfer the required amount back to my bank account and then pay off the card.  That way I earn an extra 0.4% pa by using the interest free period on the cards.

If you're new to credit cards it's a good way of building up a good credit rating and earning free money.

[Stacktastic]

On 19/05/2021 at 13:40, BackyardBullion said:

It is a great idea to build up a credit rating for yourself, especially in the build up to a re-mortgage. 

I would check with your credit card providers carefully before purchasing precious metals, I seem to remember some of the lesser known credit card companies classified gold as a cash equivalent transaction and so the interest rates would be very different and often much higher - sometimes not even 0% for the first month like most credit cards. 

Similarly I would imaging charging up your paypal account would be a similar arrangement - best to check with the credit card provider on that too. 

In terms of making payments for private purchases on the forum, that would be totally dependant on the person at the other end. Most people do not have the ability to take a credit or debit card payment and those that do know that there are payment processing fees to factor in as well. In addition, most sellers would prefer not to have the possibility of credit card chargebacks happening. Not saying that is what you will be doing but it is always a possibility for sellers to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous buyers. This is why I tend to only accept banks transfer payments and really only take credit/debit card payments from existing customers I have dealt with a number of times before. 

But, if you have a good provider and you buy from some of the big bullion dealers out there I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to make regular payments and pay them off each month to build your credit score.

Thanks great advice, cheers. I would probbaly look at a Visa cash back card, but being largely debt free I need to look into this. 
I was mainly considering using it for buying metal from Europe through the likes of Eldorado. I assume it can be covered then?
I can also use it for purchase like fuel on a regular basis as they dont log how much you spend, just the transaction & ability to pay it back. 

I have a credit card but its really old, used it to pay off my 11k student account overdraft at 24% I think. Crooks! 
Maybe use that for purchases, but im unsure how it all works with paying it off etc?? Need to look on Youtube. 
Im organised enough to use one & having it at a low rate, is also a good back up plan if I need cash quick. 
Again assuming Im allowed to leave the country i can pay for things like holidays or larger purchases. 

13 hours ago, morezone said:

I use credit cards for absolutely everything and pay it off each month.  There are two reasons for doing so:

1) I get credit consumer protection (section 75).  I've only ever used it twice and the most recent time was almost 2 years ago.  I ordered a lot of stuff from John Lewis and it shipped in 10 parcels over a weekend.  I only ended up receiving 8 of them on the Monday and tracking was showing these missing parcels as delivered and some of the parcels that were delivered as being undelivered.  Contacted JL and a few days later after investigation and them contacting DHL they were told me they were delivered and weren't going to refund or replace them.  Not sure how they came to that conclusion when tracking clearly showed some were still undelivered.  Contacted Amex and told them the story.  One minute on hold and they refunded me the undelivered amount.  Luckily I've only had to use it twice but there's no point using a debit card when a credit card will do the same job and offer more protection.

2) Cashback.  Only a few bullion dealers actually accept credit cards as payment but when they do it brings the cost down by 0.5% for me.  Not a lot but on a £1k gold coin it's £5.  I use two cards for UK purchases.  A visa which offers 0.5% and Amex which is tiered from 0.5% to 1%.  I will use Amex where I can but for those places that don't accept Amex I use the Visa.  I put all business and personal purchases though them.  My year end was last month on the Amex and I got £800+ cashback.  Visa is currently sitting at £34.35.  At the end of the end it's free money for using a card for purchases which I would either pay cash or use a debit card on.  Makes no sense for me to withdraw cash to spend nor does it make sense for me to have funds sitting in an account waiting to be spent.  All my bank accounts have minimal balances, just enough to cover monthly direct debits etc and the rest goes into a savings account.  When the credit card bill comes I transfer the required amount back to my bank account and then pay off the card.  That way I earn an extra 0.4% pa by using the interest free period on the cards.

If you're new to credit cards it's a good way of building up a good credit rating and earning free money.

Yeah the main reason is to have some back up if somehting goes wrong. Especially the case for holidays and stuff. 

I have a good score as I have mortgage & other things, but it could be better & an active credit card might make sense. 
Wish I had made regular payments from my other card over the last 12 years. 

[morezone]

If you're buying things outside of Europe you should be looking at a foreign currency fee free card.  If not, then typical credit cards will add a 2.95% handling fee.  Anything you buy over £100 should be covered under the consumer credit act.

In an ideal world you should have 2 credit cards.  One cashback and one foreign fee free.  Use the foreign fee free exclusively for purchases outside of the UK and in the case where there's an option to pay in GBP or local currency, always select local currency as that will give you the best exchange rate since the conversion will be done by the card rather than a 3rd party.  The cashback card should be used for your everyday spending in the UK.

Do you know your credit score?  There are many factors which are used to build up a credit score and having active credit facilities with minimal/zero balances should help boost it.  No harm in building up a higher credit score if it isn't costing you anything.

The most important thing is to pay off the balance each month otherwise you will incur charges and never take cash out of the cash machine with one.  Unless of course it's an absolute emergency.