I'm grahamt at Dooyoo. I'm here mainly so I can warn Ciao members if I find a review there that see...
I'm grahamt at Dooyoo. I'm here mainly so I can warn Ciao members if I find a review there that seems to have been stolen from here! Had to post some reviews in order to be allowed to rate other reviews here!
Member since:22.04.2008
Reviews:12
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I'll be honest, I never for a moment considered opening any sort of an account with Cahoot. Their savings account only offers so-so interest rates, although that has actually improved since I applied for an account. I'm really not looking for another current account, certainly not in order to change from my existing bank. I definitely don't need another credit card, at least, not a standard credit card that is. On the face of it Cahoot had nothing to interest me.
Until, that is, I read a small article on the Web. It was one of those regular articles that bemoan the insecurity of doing any sort of financial transaction online. Now, I don't know if you are like me but I must admit that buying things on the Web does fill me with a certain nervousness. Revealing details of bank accounts and credit cards, as you have to, is not something that I do without considerable thought. I have to be pretty sure that I can trust the other party and even then I have this feeling at the back of my mind that I am taking a risk, even with so called reputable organisations. After all, financial organisations as well-known as Nationwide have been known to let their customer's details get into distinctly suspect hands.
What the article discussed was a facility that took away all the risk and seemed so simple and obvious that it was a surprise that no one else had thought of it. It was a credit card designed specifically for the web. A Webcard.
The way that the Cahoot Webcard works is that it is a "virtual" debit card. It does not exist in a physical form, only as software. What makes it secure is that you can only use it once. So, what use is that if you have to apply for a new debit card each time you use it? Well, actually, that's not how it works. What can only be used once is the debit card information; the debit card number, the expiry date and the security number. After that is used to buy something, the next time you want to use your Webcard the software generates a brand new set of details.
So simple, so obvious. Effectively what the software generates for you is a one-time transaction number, tied back to your Cahoot account, the details of which are never revealed. Brilliant! I want one of those!!!!. But how to get hold of one? And that is just the start of what has been one of the most frustrating and lengthy processes to apply for anything I have ever had to suffer. So, let's start at the beginning.
First of all you have to visit the Cahoot website (www.cahoot.com). Cahoot is actually a subsidiary of Abbey,
itself now owned by the Spanish Santander Group. On their Home Page there is no mention of the Webcard. To find details of that you have to click on "Other Products". Here you find options of the Webcard, Insurance and Sharetrading. You are informed that the Webcard is "The virtual online payment card" with which you "Never expose your Cahoot current account or credit card details over the web" and with which you can "Shop anywhere online without your plastic"; exactly what I needed. So you click on "More info". Here you find out (as it now says) that in order to apply for a Cahoot Webcard you must apply for a Cahoot Current Account or a Cahoot Credit Card account.
As I say, that's what it says now. When I started applying for my Webcard it then simply said you needed to have a Cahoot account. It didn't specify if that had to be a current account or a savings account. As I didn't really need a current account I decided to apply for a Cahoot Savings Account. I didn't really intend to use it but if that's what was required in order to get my Webcard that that's what I would apply for.
You do this online and in order to do so you have to set up all the things you will need for online bankingaccount access. This includes choosing a Username, a Password and providing a number of "memorable" facts that will be randomly chosen when you log on as additional proof of identity, such as Memorable Date (year), Memorable Place, Mother's Maiden Name (an old favourite - I hate it when they ask for that because it's the first thing an identity thief will try to find out) and so on, about five of them in all (to have to remember!). When you log on using these details, apart from the memorable info question you are asked also to supply two characters of you password, using a drop-down box to select them rather than by typing them in, so avoiding them being captured by keylogger spyware. I like that. It's a pity my bank doesn't do the same although they do at least ask for three of the characters.
The website has now been changed and specifically states that the account must be a current account but it didn't then. So I went through all of the hassle of applying for what turned out to be a completely useless account. It took weeks to get the savings account set up, including having to send current utility statements as proof of identity. When it was finally set up, only then did I discover that I couldn't apply for the Webcard! I phoned Cahoot to find out why and then was told the bad news. I would have to apply for a Current Account.
Actually, the website is still wrong. It says that you can also get a Webcard if you apply for a Cahoot Credit Card account. However, what it doesn't tell you is that Cahoot no longer offers a credit card account to new customers! If you already have one then you can still use it and, presumably, you can use it to apply for a Webcard, but you cannot apply for a new Cahoot Credit Card. Mistake after mistake! Not a good sign.
So, about a month has gone by and I have a savings account that is completely useless to me and now have to apply for a Current Account as well in order finally to get my Webcard. Even though I have already supplied all of my identification documents in order to open the savings account it still takes nearly another month to get the current account set up. Along with the current account I get sent to me a Debit Card (with yet another PIN number to remember, although I am unlikely ever to use it anyway so perhaps that won't be a problem) and a Paying-in Book to get money into the current account. You can do this with a cheque by post or at the Post Office or, of course, any Abbey branch. I will be using inter-bank transfer from my existing bank.
Finally you are in a position to be able to get your Webcard. This just involves downloading a little piece of software from the Cahoot website to your computer. This only takes a moment. Having installed it, to use it you have to log in to it with your Cahoot Username and Password and the answer to one of your memorable questions.
If you want first to get an idea of how it works then you can access a demo on the Cahoot website. To use it you indicate that you want to make a purchase by clicking the "Pay now" button and then on the screen all the numbers of the card image (it looks like a normal Visa credit card) like the card number, expiry date and security number start rapidly changing, almost like the numbers on a slot machine, until finally they settle to a unique set of information for this transaction. Around here you also get to specify the maximum amount associated with the transaction so no one can add an extra zero onto the amount to inflate the price! Good move.
At this point you transfer the information to the transaction form on the website where you are making your purchase. The Webcard application already recognises a number of websites and so a single press of the "instant form fill" button auto-completes the form for you. For
Pictures of Cahoot Card
After you've logged in you can then make a payment and set an upper limit on the amount.
Of course, there is no reason why the use of the Webcard needs to be limited to electronic transactions. If you are making a purchase over the phone then you could follow exactly the same procedure and simply read the generated information out to the agent taking your order.
The Webcard is actually associated with your current account Debit Card and so payments will come out of your Cahoot Current Account so you need to make sure that you have sufficient funds in it. Cahoot does give you a buffer of £100 before they start charging you overdraft fees. If you have a Cahoot Credit Card then you can choose under Options to associate the Webcard with that instead.
One thing you can't use it for is for purchases via services such as PayPal. Here you have to pre-register your credit or debit card details and PayPal make a charge if ever you want to change them, so using the Cahoot Webcard is simply not a practical or economic option. I suppose we have to trust PayPal to keep our financial information secure and secret don't we?
The Cahoot Webcard is a brilliant idea and it is a big surprise that no one else offers this facility. Maybe Cahoot has patented it? I'm sure it must be the one single reason why potential customers must be flocking to Cahoot's website. Whether that also results in additional business in other areas for Cahoot I can't say. It's unlikely to result in me using Cahoot's other services even though I now have their current and savings accounts. Of course, if they decided to offer a competitive interest rate then I might well use the latter.
So, what has been my experience in practice? Well, mixed but all of the problems I have discovered don't appear to be with the Webcard itself but with other aspects of using it.
First of all, avoid using Firefox when using the Webcard to carry out a transaction. Use MS Internet Explorer as it appears to be the only browser that works properly. The problem, specifically is when copying the credit card details from the Webcard application to the form on the vendor's website.
You'll remember that I indicated that you can either click the "instant form fill" button or else drag and drop the details into the appropriate fields on the webpage. Unfortunately Firefox doesn't process the Drag and Drop correctly. For some reason I haven't resolved, Firefox seems to assume that if you click on any details in one application and drag them to another window that automatically what you are trying to do is copy a URL. It takes the details (say the actual credit card number) and automatically generates a URL in the form - www.1111111111111111.com - and inserts it into the address toolbar and then tries to find that website! This is not a lot of use for filling in forms.
I haven't investigated whether this is to do with a Firefox setting but I will look into it. Suffice to say the IE processes the action correctly. Firefox may do so if you use IETab to change the Firefox rendering engine to the IE one (whilst still staying in Firefox) but I haven't experimented with that yet.
The other problem I found was when trying to buy AA European Breakdown Cover on the AA website. All went smoothly until I came to enter the credit card details. I dragged and dropped the information into the webpage form and then pressed "Proceed". I then got a message in red saying that the transaction could not be processed and telling me to ring a freephone number for help. As it was out of office hours I was unable to do so but I did the following morning.
Incidentally, just as an aside, there is an error on the AA website anyway. In the details of the credit card it asks you to fill in Start/Expiry Dates in the format MM/YY. This is actually incorrect. There are in fact two boxes for each date. What you actually have to do is put MM in the first box and YY in the second. Of course, if you are trying to drag and drop a date in the format MM/YY, this is not a lot of help! Second black mark against the AA.
I had to go through all of the details again with the AA's agent but when it came to pay I gave him exactly the same credit card details as I had tried to enter on the website. This time the transaction went through without any problems. Remember, these are one-time-only details so that confirmed that they hadn't already been used but were still valid.
I have no idea why the transaction wasn't accepted online but was accepted over the phone. Maybe there was a delay in posting the generated details on whatever database Cahoot uses and the merchant accesses to validate the details. If so, that isn't good news. I shall enquire if this is possible with Cahoot. However, what it does prove is that you can use your Webcard for phone transactions as well as online ones, which is good news.
As it is, I will be using my Cahoot Webcard for all eligible web transactions from now on.
Four stars only because of the hassle in trying to get hold of it. It would have been five otherwise!
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Advantages: Competitive Rates of Interest, ease of use, security re chip & pin Disadvantages: expensive to use abroad; £25 for each late payment; card does not seem to be read by certain retailers
RippedoffPete 19.11.2004 ·
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