THE notion that credit cards are accepted by businesses anywhere in the world no longer holds in the virtual world.
To protect themselves from online fraud, many e-retailers in the United States, where the bulk of online stores reside, do not accept credit cards issued from foreign countries.
So, even the biggest pile of money cannot be expended for online buys if you are using a Singapore-issued MasterCard or Visa credit card.
The same goes for students studying abroad - parents should get them US-issued plastic with which they can do online shopping, say, at WalMart or Macy's.
MasterCard says that there is its MasterCard Honour All Cards rule that requires merchants to honour all its cards without discrimination, be it physically or 'or in a virtual environment such as the Internet', but did not elaborate on why some online retailers fail to do so.
Visa could not revert by press time on this matter.
While there are concierge services, such as vPost or Globeshopper, that help you make purchases from sites that do not accept foreign cards, not all of them operate like clockwork.
When Digital Life made three attempts to purchase items from fashion retailer Macy's website via shipping services Globeshopper, vPost and Comgateway, only Comgateway's order got through.
The other two services explained that the merchant rejected the order but were scant on other details.
When contacted, a customer service representative for fashion retailer Macy's explained that foreign-issued credit cards can be used, but 'the account used for payment must be able to be verified through one of our two credit card verification companies'.
Some foreign credit card insurers are not able to or are unwilling to cooperate with our verification procedures, it said via e-mail.
Such orders are then cancelled.
Note that service fee
Think of virtual cards as a debit card or online stored value card that come with the 16-digit credit card number.
When you top up your virtual card, it allows you to make online purchases with the virtual money. The amount is then automatically deducted from your virtual account.
For parents, this is a way to give a child the controlled elasticity of a credit card but limit their spending to the amount of money they top up.
The catch is that these services cost extra, meaning you have to pay a service fee that varies according to and is on top of the price of the items you are buying.
If you use your credit card to top up your virtual card, usually in US dollars, you also have to pay your credit card company's exchange rate fees.
Unfortunately, while there are MasterCard and Visa virtual card services available worldwide, none has been launched in Singapore.
However, there are always ways around this.
The service I rely on is Entropay (www.entropay.com), which is also one actively used by gamers, especially to make purchases on the US PlayStation Network, which sells games and extra content for titles such as SingStar and Rock Band.
The service charges a 4.5 per cent fee for each amount loaded on the card, so if I add US$10, I'm paying US$10.45.
To me, that is a small price to pay for something I otherwise would not be able to own.
This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 3 September 2008.
