Tesco pay at pump

[Neverplayleapfrogwithmrpipes]

Hi there we have just noticed that when you pay at the pump in Tesco, it tries to ring-fence £120 in your account. If you don't have £120 then it rejects your transaction.

Has anyone else noticed this recently?

I really feel for night shift workers who don't have £120 and when kiosk is closed!
I know that asda started doing this last year for £90.

It's nothing to do with the supermarkets it's visa and Mastercard setting the charges because they are losing so much money because people don't have the funds to cover the payment when it comes out but yes, it's very annoying for pfs staff and I don't envy them.

Would be useful if you could opt to just put a set amount in. But its a more complex system... although I've experienced it in other countries.

It does try to approve £120, but it doesn't reject your card if you have less available.

If you only have £16 (for example) on your card, then it will only let you take £16 worth of petrol.

It doesn't reject, it limits your spend, so if you only have £50 it tells you that your card is authorised for a fuel spend up to £50

On the news article I read, it said if you didn't have £120 available it would tell you how much you had and allow you to refill up to that amount?

Previously it was £99 at our local Tesco, tbh £120 works better for us as it costs more than that to fill the cars so means we can get a bit more when we need to.

I've notice this too, I think Morrisons is £100.

We got caught out with car hire abroad. Their deposit put us over our credit card limit and we ended up being charged £12 for the few days before it was refunded.

Yes really annoying. I have limited funds and got caught by this.

Paid at pump on Friday and I only put £15 in! I didn’t get the £100 back into my account until today.

I ll always go into the garage to pay now.

This was widely publicized years ago. It has nothing to do with the shop you buy your petrol from.

It is the card providers. They advertised this well in advance of it happening, and the roll out has taken a couple of years with continued advertising that it was happening.

Instead of allowing petrol stations to authorise your card for £1 and then deduct the amount of petrol later, they are now ring fencing £120 for a few hours, then returning it minus the cost of petrol.
This is to stop people with just £1 in their account authorising the petrol, and then going into an unarranged overdraft when the full petrol charge is taken.

They are also not always ring fencing the full £120. If you dont have that much in your account, some banks are setting it up to then take a different, lower amount your account can cover and letting you fill up with that much fuel.

Until a few months ago it was £100, they had to increase it to £120 to account for the increase in fuel prices.

Pay At Pump has always pre-authorised an amount large enough to cover a tank of fuel. If it's a problem, pay at the cashier.

Are you a new driver?

My local Tesco petrol station only takes a £1 and the correct amount usually doesn’t clear for a few days. The maximum amount you can put through pay at the pump at that place is £99, so I think they all have different set ups.

It's a slow roll out. Started a year ago at least.

My local Tesco just upgraded in October. Yours will get there soon enough.

No, it has not.
Tesco always took £1, just to check the card was working. Then, within a couple of days, the full amount you spent would come out. So, you could have £1 in your bank account but get a full tank of fuel. You would then go into an unarranged overdraft when the cost of your fuel was debited from your account 2 days later unless you put money into your account.

I've got a new Santander mastercard. The machine at the pump just wouldn't let me use it last time, it wasn't progressing IYSWIM. I went into the kiosk and apparently the new mastercard is too thick for their machines. I paid at the kiosk with no issue, but I felt a bit of a pratt.

No it hasn't. Mine used to pre authorise £1 - only changed recently at my Tesco

And the money would come out 2 days later - buy fuel Monday be debited your account wednesday

Up until recently Tesco was the one we used as it only checked £1. We would always endure that we only put in what we had in the account. We have avoided asda and Morrisons for the family car since they introduced it but Tescos doing it is relatively new.

@Neverplayleapfrogwithmrpipes I appreciate it may be annoying for people with less money in their account but it's hardly up there with the worst things in the world. People who can't afford to have that money ring fenced for a day can just go into the shop. The poor impoverished night shift workers (you are really grasping for someone who wouldn't be able to just pop into the kiosk) must have some days where they are either on their way to or from their shift when the kiosk is open.

I haven't seen a £1 pre-charge for several years. Now that I look into it some more, it's only few stores that retained the £1 until recently.

I don't think Tesco have more than a handful of cashier-less fuel stations though, so you almost always have the option to pay the cashier the exact amount. What's the problem? you're hardly a second-class citizen for having to pay the cashier, and pay at pump can't supply Haribo.

My Tesco retained it until about 2 months ago. As did the local Asda.

So it clearly hasn't always been the case.

God some rather patronising replies!

Although it’s been publicised, I had no idea the date it would be rolled out in my local Tesco garage; just a couple of weeks ago.

For anyone like me living on a low budget it’s extremely difficult to have £120 frozen in my account when every pound is needed week to week.
Last time it took a whole weekend for the funds to be released.
I usually put in around £15

Yes it’s usually possible to pay in the shop. If I’m rushing to get to and from jobs (self employed) it’s time consuming and annoying.
If it’s early morning or late at night; it’s shut.

There could be a system where you select the amount of petrol you want at pump ( in increments of £10 say ) and the payment authorised that way.