"CWire Retail L" on my bank statement

Brendan Burgess

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VDC-CWIRE Retail L-96.56

This is on my bank statement. I am trying to remember what I bought for €96.56.

VDC means a contactless payment.

I have a vague memory of someone producing one of those little white yokes attached to their phone for approval. And being a bit surprised as I thought that they should have a proper credit card payment device. If a small trader uses one of these, does some generic name appear on the bank statement?
 

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@RoboMac seems to have explained this one but, in general, these often vague and non self explanatory reference fields on bank statements do my head in and often confuse me too. You'd think that in this day and age more self explanatory data could be used.
 
It just struck me that "CWIRE" is presumably "C-W-Ire" standing for "C[hemist] W[arehouse] Ire[land]". I initially read it as "C-Wire" and thought that maybe it referred to some intermediate tech or payment processing company. (And the long defunct Cable and Wireless was the first company that sprung to mind... ).
 
Chemist Warehouse, a familiar feature on my statements, can't go in there without spending a fortune!!!
 
I read it as C Wire as well and assumed it was some sort of scam. They really should be using meaningful names that actually identify the company.
 
I get around this dilemma by religiously asking for receipts and entering the transactions into my DIY Filemaker Pro database as soon as I get back from the latest shopping spree. I keep the receipts and reconcile the DIY database balance against my account balance there and then. It takes about two minutes per week.

For online purchases in local or foreign currencies (usually USD or GBP) I create a transaction as soon as I get the order details via email, using the order/invoice number as a reference field. I pay Amazon in GBP knowing that after delivery there'll be a €0.45 currency fee posted against the original euro transaction amount, so no surprises

The key is the discipline to record the transactions there and then as @Steven Barrett said in another thread. Once I got into the swing of things 12 years ago its now second nature to me, like locking the doors, feeding the dog, or taking my meds (I started the amnesia meds 12 years ago!)

I pay insurances and other stuff (car, house, dog, broadband, phone, TV, etc) on the drip mainly via my bank as the insurance broker, free of finance charges. At the start of each insurance/contract period, I prepopulate the database with transactions dated and valued as they will fall due and am on it like white on rice if the money doesn't get taken. Same with payments from a variety of sources, pensions, etc; if they're not there when I predict, answers will be demanded. There may be slight variations in the payment dates I calculate due to weekends/bank holidays; my little algorithm ain't AI'd enough to take account of those, KISS being the operative word.

Unless paper receipts are for warrantied items, they get burned/shredded depending on the time of year; receipts for warrantied items get stapled to the instruction manual and filed.

I'm now using the LIDL Plus app on my phone with digital receipts, thanks to @ClubMan. I'm working on extracting the details from the receipts to analyse food-spend vs middle-aisle purchases. I bought yet another desktop lamp yesterday for €7.99. I can't help myself!
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Using a meaningful name would cut down on fraud.
Click to expand...
Not sure it would cut down on fraud. It could actually help it. If I setup an account as 'ChemWH' and charged your account, you probably wouldn't question it. A recent case in the Aviva stadium showed employees had set up their own SumUp accounts, each included the name 'Aviva' so customers wouldn't be suspicious. In this case it was the employer being scammed, not the customer.

'Ringleader' jailed after Aviva Stadium catering staff stole over €30,000 with card machines

The court heard that a group of six catering staff diverted customer payments from card machines to their own phones.
www.thejournal.ie
 
losttheplot said:
A recent case in the Aviva stadium showed employees had set up their own SumUp accounts, each included the name 'Aviva' so customers wouldn't be suspicious. In this case it was the employer being scammed, not the customer.
Click to expand...
This was the first thing that came to mind for me. I wonder did whoever served you have their own card machine. This is the modern take on the barman who brought his own till into the pub years ago when he was on his own. He was only caught when the 'investigator' reported back that he was clean as 'he rang everything up correctly on all three tills'. 'Three tills ? we only have two.......'
 
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