automated fuel dispensers

La Mothe
La Mothe Forum Participant Posts: 3
edited October 2017 in Overseas Campsites & Touring #1

Just thought I might share this with anyone touring abroad. This happened to us while we were in France this summer. We stopped at the local supermarket's petrol station to fill up before returning home and used the automated fuel pump, I put my debit card in, knowing that I had sufficient funds available there. The transaction was declined and a ticket was produced to that effect. Thinking there was an error I checked my bank account and transferred some more money to be on the safe side and tried again but with the same result.

We returned to our campsite and on checking my account more thoroughly it transpired that in total the merchant had taken £240.00 from my account but not provided any fuel in return. My bank were extremely helpful, not, and couldn't help because I had entered my pin !!!

The long and short is that with all automated transactions of this nature the machine validates it by taking money from your account, in UK this is £1.00 but elsewhere it takes your balance on account but returns the residual to your account once you filled up. 

We were assured that the money would be returned to our account but this was almost a week later

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown Forum Participant
    edited August 2017 #2
    The user and all related content has been Deleted User
  • Tigi
    Tigi Forum Participant Posts: 1,038
    500 Comments
    edited August 2017 #3

    I use all the modern trappings that a smart phone, lap top, tablet, cards sat nav etc etc  provide but still stick to cash abroad.

  • KjellNN
    KjellNN Club Member Posts: 8,671 ✭✭✭
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    edited August 2017 #4

    Halifax Clarity for us too.   One for spends and one for withdrawing cash.

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,149 ✭✭✭
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    edited August 2017 #5

    Another duplicate thread. One part in GC and the other in Overseas and it's anybody's guess where you'll end up.

  • hitchglitch
    hitchglitch Forum Participant Posts: 3,007
    1000 Comments
    edited August 2017 #6

    This is often a problem with prepaid cards like FairFx. It happened to me so I switched to Clarity and have never looked back.

  • Pippah45
    Pippah45 Forum Participant Posts: 2,452
    1000 Comments
    edited August 2017 #7

    Is it always easy to pay for fuel by cash though?  Especially on Sunday's?

  • hitchglitch
    hitchglitch Forum Participant Posts: 3,007
    1000 Comments
    edited October 2017 #8

    I just returned from Italy and France and used automatic dispensers twice (once on the Autoroute so they are gaining in popularity). On both occasions approximately 100 Euros appeared in my pending Mastercard transactions as well as the actual amount spent (approx. 80-90 Euros). Once the transactions moved to active (in about three to five days) the larger 100 Euros amount disappeared.

  • Fysherman
    Fysherman Forum Participant Posts: 1,570
    1000 Comments
    edited October 2017 #9

    I can live with a 100 euro charge against the account (returned shortly after the fill up, or even a week) but the OP was suggesting the entire balance was tied up for a week.

    Can this be correct? I sincerely hope not.

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