Tesco's petrol stations automatically charging £120 per transaction on 'Pay at Pump'

[Silverlog]

Article here in the Daily Fail

Charging you and then refunding the difference. Did you know about this? I didn't. I'd be effing furious if this messed up my banking and the refund wasn't instant. The maximum I ever put in the the car is £40. I prefer pay-at-pump because it's usually faster than going in the kiosk. Aibu?

This happened to a friend and it too over a week to get the refund.

@loudbatperson I could do that, but it relies on me remembering. Getting petrol isn't exactly a memorable experience and I'm busy. Why should I have to muck about logging into apps to make life easier for Tesco?

I wouldn't mind an auto charge if it was a more appropriate amount. I can't imagine £120 is anywhere near the average tank full, even at today's prices.

When you select to pay by pump it comes up with a £120 charge on screen and you have to enter pin with the £120 on screen before you can fill the car.

I would hate that, I don't always have that much money in my account. I live abroad and here you select how much you're going to fill up (e.g. 40e 60e 80e etc.) and pay it and it then stops once its reached that amount of petrol. I suppose it has its own drawbacks as you have to predict how much petrol you need to put in but better than risking a whole load of money being out of your account when you need it until the refund comes through.

Depending on the cost of fuel it can cost over £100 to fill up the tank on my husband's car. Mine is £50 max.

I have never noticed this. Although I very rarely fill up at pay at the pump petrol stations. None of the ones near me have that option.

This is just the sort of comment an immature for their age 17 year old would say at the end of their first half term studying economics.

The power.....the power.....

Tesco's had an issue with their system last year and when the correct amount was taken instead of refunding the holding amount it took it again causing people issues

We use a credit card for this sort of transaction

Surely choosing to use pay at pump is a decision to make your own life easier?!

Our local drive through Asda petrol garage changed to this a while ago and removed the kiosk so you pay at pump.
As we were there already, DH just paid on his card.
He then noticed £120 had been taken from the bank so went into the Asda supermarket to query it. They told him a number he had to call

When he called they basically said tough, we can and do take it. They said it would be refunded in 2 working days- it was Saturday so we expected the money back by Wednesday at the latest. It left is really short for bills as £100 being taken suddenly does some months.

Wednesday came and went with no refund so he called again. Their attitude stank. They changed it from 2 working days to 28 days "depending on your bank". DH said no, you need to return the money you've effectively stolen from me. They put the phone down.

We waited until Monday of the week after and then called their head office. Again, no help at all, they didn't care that they had helped themselves to £100 over £20 of petrol. They said there were signs up but we went back and not one sign was there.

He called the bank who said they constantly got calls over Asda doing this and that most stores do only hold it for no more than 48 hours. However, they also said they couldn't charge it back as it was technically in financial no man's land, Asda hadn't technically taken it, they had "reserved" it.

We finally got the money back over a month and a half later. We put in a formal complaint which resulted in a "tough it's our policy" response and we've not used pay at pump anywhere ever since.

@ArdeteiMasazxu - that was just pure cuntish…

Ive stopped using Tesco/asda for fuel for this reason as every time I used pay at pump they took £99 even if I only put £40 of fuel in and they held it for a few days which meant instead of having money for food shopping I didn’t! And they changed all of the sodding pumps to pay at pump

Now used the co-op which doesn’t have pay at pump and it’s closer and cheaper for fuel 🤷‍♀️

They don't actually take the money and refund though do they though - it's a pending transaction. Although it will reduce your available balance.

@BillyMack well yes, but if this is the case, I won't be doing it anymore and will occupy a pump longer while I go into the kiosk. I know there are many on here who like Pay at Pump so they don't leave their kids in the car.
And yes I could "just use a credit card" but the very people who may not have that option are the ones least likely to be able to afford the overcharge, even for a few minutes.

I thought that money was just put on hold rather than taken? I usually fill up at ASDA and it authorises an amount on my card first (I think £99). By the time I get back in the car though, I get a notification on my phone to say the actual amount has been taken from my bank account, so it only takes minutes.

I pay on the BP app because it makes my accounting for my business easier, and that’s even worse. That takes the amount you said to go up to and the amount that the fuel is. Then it takes days for one to be refunded.

It's the card providers who insist on a holding fee though, as they are the ones who have to pay tesco regardless.

Just go into the shop if it's that much of a hardship to remember. Or set a direct debit to clear the balance on the card each month.

How unfortunate that you are so smug and yet don’t know the correct purpose for using a credit card.

Although my car only takes £60 to fill up, last week I took my husbands gas guzzling monstrosity to Morrisons who also have a £120 limit...his car was empty so it cut me off at £120, I reckon I could've got another £20 worth in!
I was going to use it for mine next time but I dont think I'll bother now!

What is the correct;purpose for using a credit card?

In all my decades of having credit cards they've never told me there was a special way to use them. Maybe you could enlighten me

Well literally on this thread people have admitted to using the old way, where 99p is held instead, to essentially steal fuel - so what do you expect them to do? It's not like they can go oh well we will just accept giving fuel out to people for free! Blame them not the companies who are just trying to provide a service.

I use my Amex card at my local Tesco pay at pump, and it still only takes £1 until the actual transaction is completed.

Maybe it’s just Visa and MC doing this?

I understand why they do this. We had a filling station when I was growing up, and you wouldn’t believe the number of people who fill up then can’t pay. But ours was a small family business, not a giant supermarket chain, so it shouldn’t be a problem for them the way it was for us.

But supermarkets aren’t the giants that they are by playing fair or being kind. They’re brutal, and their share holders are only interested in one thing, so.

Do you remember when supermarkets started selling fuel? They made a loss on it. They did it to bring in shoppers, and it worked. This put a lot of the small independent fuel retailers out of business - they couldn’t compete, squeezed on one side by the oil companies and on the other by the supermarkets.

After seeing off the independents, they could do what they like.