PROTECT PURCHASES BY SPENDING ON PLASTIC

SHOPPING with plastic gives you more protection than cash if your purchases don’t show up or turn out to be faulty.

Whether you buy online or on the High Street, your credit card provider is jointly liable — alongside the retailer — to pay a refund if the product is not delivered or is found to be damaged.

The rule, under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, means you can go to either party for a refund. This is helpful if the retailer has gone bust. You will only be covered for purchases costing between £100 and £30,000 made using the credit card.

Even if you only put a single penny of your purchase on your credit card, you will still be covered so long as the item costs more than £100.

If you use your credit card to pay through PayPal online, you lose your Section 75 cover. PayPal has a restricted protection scheme of its own.

If you pay by debit card, or if you are buying something on a credit card for less than £100, you might be able to get your money back using a scheme called ‘chargeback’. It is an agreement that card providers have signed up to which means that if purchased goods don’t show up, arrive damaged or don’t match their description, you can ask your bank to try to recover the money.

There is a time limit of 120 days from the point you realised the contract had been breached or 540 days in total from the purchase date.