Beware 24/7 unmanned fuel stations taking extra card payment!

[OurOtherRV]

Had a shock yesterday - we thought our debit card had been cloned at a French supermarket fuel station when we saw our bank transaction statement included 2 unknown transactions - one for €100 & one for €2000, confusingly at 2 separate fuel stations, allegedly by the supermarket companies themselves! We froze our card immediately (on the banking app) and when we were finally able to get through to the bank this morning (their emergency section don’t work weekends…) discovered that these extra payments are taken legitimately to check you have enough money in your account to pay for your fuel before you take the fuel. The €2k amount was because we had inadvertently used a lorry pump (which obviously take far more fuel) which was alongside the car pumps - we thought it simply meant lorries would find it easier to exit from this pump… fortunately the person we spoke to at our bank was able to release both sums, otherwise it would be returned automatically after 2-3 days. He said this has been in operation since October. We are yet to find out if it is also happening in Spain.
We have to hold up our hands and admit that the screen at the pump probably explained all this before payment was made but…

 

[Gromett]

It's called a pre-auth and is part of every single transaction performed on a card.
Normally for example at a supermarket the pre-auth is for the same amount as the total bill as they know the total at the time of the transaction and the transaction is completed in the same communication with the aquirer.

When you put your card into a fuel pump, they don't know how much you have and cannot interrogate the balance. So they do a pre-auth for the maximum they will allow you to pump.
then when you complete the fuelling they will complete the transaction and the pre-auth hold should be released within a day or two. But this can sometimes take longer. For instance at hotels.
If you book into a hotel that charges £100 a night. They may pre-auth £250 for a two night booking to cover damages/fridge charges etc. This may have a hold of 2-4 weeks, because some people stay longer.
Same with car hire etc.

 

[Two on Tour]

It's quite normal and widespread, not sure that last October is correct as we have encountered this for some years now in France.

 

[Gromett]

PS: This has been the case since I was writing software to process card transactions back in 2001.

 

[chaser]

It's quite normal and widespread, not sure that last October is correct as we have encountered this for some years now in France.

Yes we have come across it all the time we have been filling up in France ,at least ten years.

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[meanders]

PS: This has been the case since I was writing software to process card transactions back in 2001.

And I can go back to APACS 40 in the early 90's. The settlement of the transaction should always clear the preauth retention (that only reduces your 'available' to spend' not your current balance). So it pre-auths say £99 you put in £50. That night the £50 hits the bank and gets paid and the £99 hold gets released. Doesn't always work though if the transaction reference does not precisely match that passed when the preauth was done or of course you can then decide not to buy. If it doesn't work it will be released in a few days depending on the banks own rules and risk.

 

[DandJ]

Had a shock yesterday - we thought our debit card had been cloned at a French supermarket fuel station when we saw our bank transaction statement included 2 unknown transactions - one for €100 & one for €2000, confusingly at 2 separate fuel stations, allegedly by the supermarket companies themselves! We froze our card immediately (on the banking app) and when we were finally able to get through to the bank this morning (their emergency section don’t work weekends…) discovered that these extra payments are taken legitimately to check you have enough money in your account to pay for your fuel before you take the fuel. The €2k amount was because we had inadvertently used a lorry pump (which obviously take far more fuel) which was alongside the car pumps - we thought it simply meant lorries would find it easier to exit from this pump… fortunately the person we spoke to at our bank was able to release both sums, otherwise it would be returned automatically after 2-3 days. He said this has been in operation since October. We are yet to find out if it is also happening in Spain.
We have to hold up our hands and admit that the screen at the pump probably explained all this before payment was made but…

That needs to be 'should'. I have a couple of friends whose motorcycle trip thru France was almost spoiled by this....multiple stops to put €20 in and all of a sudden you can have a 4 figure sum held on your acct/card.

 

[lorger]

That’s why I carry my Halifax Clarity card along with my Monzo debit card, if I need fuel and it’s at a 24/7 with no staff then I can use cc and just pay it off.

 

[Barti Ddu]

Similar here. Card preauthisation has been a feature of self service 24/7 pumps for as long as I can remember.

These days it's very rare for the transaction not to reconciled and settled within minutes, if not an hour or two. Very occasionally I've had a preauthisation amount outstanding for a couple of days.

 

[PaulW2]

In November I tried to use a pump in France. After processing my card details it failed. Then it failed again. Then it shut down. So I moved forward to the next pump which worked.

I had a pending amount of € 400 (2 x € 200) against my card for the two failed attempts for several days after this.

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[Mickey1]

It happened to me on my first trip in 2017, a garage in Olite took €100 and it wasn’t returned for two weeks, it’s happened many times since but it’s usually returned very quickly.

 

[Next Stop]

The €2k amount was because we had inadvertently used a lorry pump

This is worth making a mental note of, £100 would be ok, but £2000 taken as a pre-auth could ruin your holiday for a few days until it came back if you weren't expecting it!

 

[meanders]

Please note that they do not take the money. Your bank reserves it against the incoming transaction and removes that amount from what it will let you spend. It does not affect your bank balance although it may appear to do so. The balance is what you actually have in the account but is different to what gets shown on some apps etc because that is reduced by the preauth amounts and anything else it knows are in the pipeline. Hence the 'Available to spend" or "Available credit".

 

[dosser]

We always use a CC when paying at unmanned fuel stations now after this happening a few years ago.

 

[Holly's mum]

This is worth making a mental note of, £100 would be ok, but £2000 taken as a pre-auth could ruin your holiday for a few days until it came back if you weren't expecting it!

Totally agree with this. I am used to having pre-authorised amounts showing up but hadn't thought about the fact that if you use a lorry pump the amount would be so much higher but makes total sense of course.

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[Bill-H]

A nice little earner for the card company, invest all those pre-payement sums before having to pay them out a few days later, if there's a rolling 100,000 people all 'loaning' say, £100 to the card company, they will get quite a bit in interest out of the combined £10 million .

 

[Brize]

Had a shock yesterday - we thought our debit card had been cloned at a French supermarket fuel station when we saw our bank transaction statement included 2 unknown transactions - one for €100 & one for €2000, confusingly at 2 separate fuel stations, allegedly by the supermarket companies themselves! We froze our card immediately (on the banking app) and when we were finally able to get through to the bank this morning (their emergency section don’t work weekends…) discovered that these extra payments are taken legitimately to check you have enough money in your account to pay for your fuel before you take the fuel.

I'm surprised this is still going on. I remember it being common about 10 years ago so we then paid cash for fuel as often as possible.

However, we were in France quite a bit last year and never had this problem - we usually filled up at Carrefour or Intermarche pumps after shopping, which were in the main unmanned. Each time it simply debited the exact amount for the fuel without any additional security charges. Same in Spain, Portugal and Italy.

I don't know if it is the card we use that makes a difference (Caxton FX debit Mastercard loaded with euros), but it is the same card we used 10 years ago.

 

[Bill-H]

A nice little earner for the card company, invest all those pre-payement sums before having to pay them out a few days later, if there's a rolling 100,000 people all 'loaning' say, £100 to the card company, they will get quite a bit in interest out of the combined £10 million .

and not only that, there will also be people who don't pay all of their credit bill off every month - they'll also be paying interest on the £100 which they have 'lent' to the card company !

 

[Simon Meadwell]

Only seems to have become a problem now people have banking apps. In the days of monthly statements you wouldn’t know until it was all cleared.

 

[gus-lopez]

we thought it simply meant lorries would find it easier to exit from this pump…

No usually in France they won't allow you to use a lorry pump at manned stations as they dispense fuel at between 1&2 litres per second.

We are yet to find out if it is also happening in Spain.

Be in use since God was a boy. The "October" refers to when many Uk stations introduced it

A nice little earner for the card company, invest all those pre-payement sums before having to pay them out a few days later, if there's a rolling 100,000 people all 'loaning' say, £100 to the card company, they will get quite a bit in interest out of the combined £10 million .

Which is why it is supposed to be held & then returned as soon as the fuel amount is debited when the pump is replaced.
With spanish cards used anywhere it is a criminal offence to retain the money past the end of the day

I'm surprised this is still going on.

They have just introduced it in the Uk

However, we were in France quite a bit last year and never had this problem - we usually filled up at Carrefour or Intermarche pumps after shopping,

You just haven't noticed, Your examples both retain 120 or 150€ initially then when pump is replaced it is released as the correct amount is debited. I know they all do it as my phones tells me that they have retained X amount then refunded as the fuel payment is processed.

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[swemmy666]

It's called a pre-auth and is part of every single transaction performed on a card.
Normally for example at a supermarket the pre-auth is for the same amount as the total bill as they know the total at the time of the transaction and the transaction is completed in the same communication with the aquirer.

When you put your card into a fuel pump, they don't know how much you have and cannot interrogate the balance. So they do a pre-auth for the maximum they will allow you to pump.
then when you complete the fuelling they will complete the transaction and the pre-auth hold should be released within a day or two. But this can sometimes take longer. For instance at hotels.
If you book into a hotel that charges £100 a night. They may pre-auth £250 for a two night booking to cover damages/fridge charges etc. This may have a hold of 2-4 weeks, because some people stay longer.
Same with car hire etc.

car hire can be a pain, when they take a large amount for insurance cover

 

[BikerGraham]

also for everyone to note

when travelling back through France last week, twice, at separate fuel stations, the card machines on the pumps would not accept any of my UK cards.

one was the main service station on an Autoroute. At this one I went an pre-paid at the cashier. Using my card .......

second one was at an unmanned Intermarche. so had to leave it a refuel elsewhere. Where my first card worked at the pump dispenser.

so make sure you don't run your tank too low before refuelling.

 

[meanders]

Agreed. Many fuel pumps especially, but some other merchant types, now have to 'settle' the transaction close to real time, whereas all settlements always used to be done overnight so it's actually less of a problem than it was 30 years ago when preauth was first introduced under APACS40 being different to APACS30. It was the same with 'on-line authorisation' of transactions at most tills. Before then, the merchant had to call in if over their floor limit and obtain a phone authorisation number that was written on the zip-zap slip. The bank copy of that slip was then taken to the merchant's bank branch and banked along with the cash and cheques. The slips were then coded and processed and the money would be taken from your account two or three days after you made the purchase. (Longer if the merchant was tardy with their banking. However, if voice authorisation had been sought, the bank account of the purchaser was marked with that transaction value and unless you had an overdraft, you could not spend that money again. If a refund was processed, customers would get upset that the merchant had to ring for authorisation, but that process released the funds back to the customer account the same day rather than waiting for the refund slip to be banked.

These days you present a card at a till, it will get checked against the local 'hot card file' (mainly stolen cards) that is updated nightly, then go on-line to the 'acquirer' usually via a datacentre, but sometimes direct. BASE24 then takes over are routes the message as required. The acquirer's BASE24 system then checks the 'most recent hot card file' and then depending on the rules agreed with the 'issuer' will either stand in with an approval, or pass it to the issuer. It gets even more complex with overseas cards. However to wait more than few seconds for an response is extremely unusual. At each step there are stand in rules if the authorisation process is delayed or out of action. This will then likely tell the merchant that they have to ring for authorisation. BASE24 originally only ran on TANDEM fault tolerant computers but now runs on many platforms. Pay at pump behaves just as if you presented a card at a till so goes through exactly the same procedure. The only difference is that as someone said right at the beginning, the retailer, nor the banks know how much fuel you want so it reserves a fixed amount agreed between the retailer and their acquirer. .

My only surprise is that none of this is new and people are still getting surprised.

 

[scotzsue]

Our asda has gone card only, the local fuel station has always been card only, I use Starling at both, I have been notified of actual amount I have spent, before managing to lock up my awkward fuel cap.

 

[Gromett]

A nice little earner for the card company, invest all those pre-payement sums before having to pay them out a few days later, if there's a rolling 100,000 people all 'loaning' say, £100 to the card company, they will get quite a bit in interest out of the combined £10 million .

They don't take the money out of your account. They just earmark it as "reserved". Your balance stays the same and if it is an interest bearing account you will still earn interest on it. You don't lose out through this process other than the lack of availability of the funds.

As for the card company earning money on it. They never hold the money at all. For debit cards it is held in the bank account, VISA/MASTERCARD don't hold it. For credit cards, it is there money in the first place, they want you to spend it to earn interest.
When it is just reserved they are not earning on it.

As for the banks which actually have your money. They invest it anyway even what is in your account. That is how they can give you a free bank account and not charge you for transactions etc.

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[gus-lopez]

also for everyone to note

when travelling back through France last week, twice, at separate fuel stations, the card machines on the pumps would not accept any of my UK cards.

one was the main service station on an Autoroute. At this one I went an pre-paid at the cashier. Using my card .......

second one was at an unmanned Intermarche. so had to leave it a refuel elsewhere. Where my first card worked at the pump dispenser.

so make sure you don't run your tank too low before refuelling.

Yes I had that one night years ago.I had to wait for a French bloke to turn up & I paid him cash & he used his card.
Also another time on the toll roads through France going to Germany,& in both directions, you could not get the pump turned on until you had left either a credit card or your driving licence behind the counter.

 

[Northernraider]

Had a shock yesterday - we thought our debit card had been cloned at a French supermarket fuel station when we saw our bank transaction statement included 2 unknown transactions - one for €100 & one for €2000, confusingly at 2 separate fuel stations, allegedly by the supermarket companies themselves! We froze our card immediately (on the banking app) and when we were finally able to get through to the bank this morning (their emergency section don’t work weekends…) discovered that these extra payments are taken legitimately to check you have enough money in your account to pay for your fuel before you take the fuel. The €2k amount was because we had inadvertently used a lorry pump (which obviously take far more fuel) which was alongside the car pumps - we thought it simply meant lorries would find it easier to exit from this pump… fortunately the person we spoke to at our bank was able to release both sums, otherwise it would be returned automatically after 2-3 days. He said this has been in operation since October. We are yet to find out if it is also happening in Spain.
We have to hold up our hands and admit that the screen at the pump probably explained all this before payment was made but…

That's happened for years . I believe asda or tesco in the UK does it now too.

 

[StillGoing]

We had one in Spain last year that took a couple of days before the pre-authorisation amount was removed.

 

[meanders]

Also another time on the toll roads through France going to Germany,& in both directions, you could not get the pump turned on until you had left either a credit card or your driving licence behind the counter.

True also in I think all six American states I have ever filled up.