Ntes on using 24 hr fuel pumps

Nah, still don't get it. You pre-pay £22 for petrol and you put £22
worth of petrol in. Fine. You pre-pay £18 for petrol and you put £18
wrth of petrol in, but it charges £20 and then refunds you £2. Doesn't
make sense. But thanks for trying!

 

I think you hit the same thing as me, even though mine is *not* a pre-paid
card.

Others will not have hit it if using a CC or there usual accounts as they
will have had more money in their current accounts or a potential over
draft limit.

Where as I had 160ukp in the account, but no overdraft and was hit by the
reserve.

Daft thing was, when I used it on Saturday the kiosk was open, but I used
the 24hr pump because there were queues at the others.

Lesson learnt.

 

Ah. Our Nationwide Visa seems to work much better.

 

Yeah - get a less pikey card!

 

CC ?

Or did you have more money in the account ?

 

Nah, put more money in the account.

 

Surely that would be Jesús Cristo.

 

How very strange. Never done that for me,neither with French cards nor
back in the day when I was using English ones.

Must have seen you address or something.

 

Why would you want to use a pre-paid card? What's wrong with a proper Visa
card?

So you pre pay money onto the card?

 

We saw that on our cc (well, 129 Euros) when we filled up at the
Carrefour on Saturday. You used the same filling station Colin so I
assume you saw the same thing?

Wasn't that just saying I could put no more than 129 Euros of petrol
in?

Kevin

 

This is the thing that confuses me. If I use my card in a machine, it tells
me that I can purchase a maximum euro value of fuel, but it certainly doesn't
take a form of "guarantee" (if I've understood the posts correctly).

 

Bad form and all that but...so good they named him (me!) twice.

I guess that means I now have signatures working...

 

I've never seen a prepay card before in the UK. I know they exist in the US
(pretty handy for students where Mommy and Daddy prepay for credit on a Visa
card). Is this the system you lot are talking about.

That's a debit card, like 90% [1] of all cards issued by banks in France. So
for you, it blocked some money on your account (or would have done) and would
have refunded it (minus costs for petrol) a few days later? Bizarre.

[1] Warning, spurious statistic alert!

 

I'll try one more time. Firstly, the max you can spend in one
transaction on a Solo at an Asda card pump is 20 quid. Secondly, you
don't pre-pay before you put the petrol in. The pump doesn't know how
much petrol you're going to use. It only knows it's a Solo card, so
once you hit 20 quid, the pump cuts out.

So when you stick your card in, the pump has a little chat with itself
along the lines of "uh-oh, it's a pikey. I'll reserve the maximum
amount of 20 quid just in case". Then when you've finished putting the
petrol in, the pump says "ah bugger, despite my funky sign suggesting
he puts the full 20 quid's worth in, the stupid pikey ****'s only put
18 in. I'd better issue a refund for the extra 2 quid".

Any better?

 

Better exchange rate & less in fees for cash withdrawals.

Nothing, apart from the above

Yep. And top up via internet or mobile when it runs out.

 

Who backs it for foreign transactions though, Maestro?

 

Ah, I see. That never happens to me. I reckon it's something to do with your
card being a foreign one. It's probably quicker to authorise a ceiling limit
of €130 (as it doesn't need to verify your account in real time [1]) and then
charge you this, whilst refunding you the difference later.

[1] Because maybe the system doesn't allow it (which, if it is the case, is a
new one on me).

I reckon it's a banking thing, not a petrol station thing. Have a word with
your bank and ask them. I'd be interested to know.

 

That's what I thought it meant.

 

Ah. That makes all the difference.

 

Yes.