Getting 'cashback' on debit cards 90s/00s if you didn't have money in account

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Please settle argument/check I'm not going mad.
I remember late 90s/early 00s -and being very financially irresponsible- that you could get cash from a transaction on your debit card. E.g. you'd buy chewing gum for 30p and get £30 cash which you had to sign fir on the receipt. The best bit was for some reason you could get the cash even of you had no money in your account because there was a time delay on it processing.
Friends same age not only do not remember this, but a bank working friend says it would have been impossible. But I CLEARLY remember doing it

I did this all the time as a student, so yes, it was definitely possible!

Yup. Because it wasn't electronic you did it on the bill knowing there was no cash to cover it that day- used it many times as a student. Mainly in the pub....

Yes. Used to do this all the time as a student.

Well you can still get cash back, I was offered it just the other day, but I've no idea if it works without the money in your account. I suspect not as every single transaction I make I get an immediate notification from my banking app.

Yes but you couldn’t do it everywhere. I remember I figured as a student that I could get £200 cashback at tesco on the Kings Road.

We know that. But people only generally did it before payday and that the money would be there when the bank debited it from the account.

It probably pleases you to learn that I got caught out by it once and I still don't understand how.

I needed to pay the council tax but had no money. So I posted a cheque by second class post, thinking I'd have a few days by which time I'd have got paid but no, the post and the council conspired against me and the bank tried to take the money the very next day and of course it bounced and I got a bank charge and a snotty letter from the council. I think it worked the next time as I'd been paid by then, but I remember thinking that if someone was sending me a cheque by second class post, it would have been at least a week before the money was in my account, but here somehow both the post and the bank worked in record time.

All the time.

Especially cheques in the supermarket, used to go shopping on a Friday night knowing no money until Monday.

Also getting cash out with no money. All charges avoided providing money in bank first thing on Monday.

paying by cheque in the supermarket and writing cheques for cash in the pub as a student...also remember buying train tickets on the train in the 90's a few days before pay day when they had the old fashioned manual card swiping machines that took a few days to process

Post dated cheques in the 90s. I'd go clothes shopping 3 days before pay day and end up skint by the time pay day came!

Just over 3 years ago before I started a new job I used the wrong credit card to buy a £1k laptop from Argos. Didn’t realise it was an old card with just £500 on it

transaction went through as Argos terminals were not online on the time so it didn’t decline the transaction. Ended up with fees and all sorts of missed payment alerts just before all my financial checks were about to happen

fell on the mercy of Barclaycard who let me pay the cash and not impact my credit file

I have a vague memory of walking to the petrol station for my cigs and night out cash, something about them guaranteeing money would always go through?

My credit card still takes a day or 2 to post the transaction.

I remember going into a bank to withdraw cash over the counter then running outside to get the same cash out the atm before the account had been updated.

Another way of getting cash just before payday was to go to M&S and buy some clothing/shoes and pay by cheque. Then go to the food hall and buy your lunch.
Then go back to customer services and get a refund on the item you had just bought. If you paid by cheque you were refunded in cash. My manager at work taught me this when I was just out of my teens in the early 90's and had declined after work drinks as I was skint
😂If I had written the cheque Friday pm it wouldn't come out of my account til Tuesday the following week.

Which supermarkets still do cashback? This thread is a blast from the past and takes me back to more carefree days!

Oh I have forgotten this 😂

They still do cashback, but the system now checks with your bank in real time. So no more free weekend loans 😢

I know ASDA do, I'm not sure about Tesco as we don't have one. Never dared ask in Waitrose for fear of being shunned and branded not wealthy enough to be there

Yes, when I was 17 I had a friend who was 19, who had a chequebook, we funded a lot of nights out on that chequebook, we had no money...

Goodness knows what used to happen to (mostly pubs) when it came time to do the banking, although I did work in a pub and I think they only looked through the tills about once per week so accounts had probably been topped up by the time they got round to cashing them in.

What an odd system cheques were - here's a piece of paper that says that I'll pay!

Oh yes. A friend at university taught me the double fold trick so it had be sorted manually and gave you an extra day 🤣

Oh yes. I had a £250 cheque guarantee card and a shopping addiction so pretty often I had no money left on payday. For nights out I'd go to Debenhams for a refund in cash.

Not all that long ago you could do it with contactless also. It hadn't been in long and took a while to show on your transactions. I went overdrawn that way too a few times.

I obviously never filled my car with petrol for £1 at a pay at pump though 😬

Can’t comment on the post but if you and the council had the same sort code cheques cleared the same day instead of three days.

Yes! I remember I could only get out about £100 before it started declining.

Also I used to do it in £30 increments so I wonder if it had declined when I went above that, I can't remember