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?

Mines been doing it for a while, maybe it's being rolled out in stages

Anyway it's hardly a shock as other places like Asda have been doing it for ages and you can see why they do it

This.

I've never had 120 taken out of my account for petrol and I always pay at pump. I presumed that they just check that you have up to 120 available on your card in case that's the amount of petrol you end up using. I always use about 40 - well, 40.02 🫥 - and that's the only transaction that shows.

I don't think there's that many places that offer the 'press a button to get £X of petrol' option.

The only place I've noticed it is Sainsburys and it's a fairly recent thing at the one near me. I rarely buy petrol at Tesco, but often use Morrisons, Esso, Asda, Shell and BP due to having to buy petrol for my own car, and work pool and hire cars, that all have different fuel cards/requirements and none of them have them as far as I know.

And it used to be 99, only recently increased to 120.

If the previous mechanism meant fuel was being stolen then that would need paying for, so likely added to the cost of fuel. So if they have stopped that then it means we're not all paying for that theft, which has to be somewhat helpful in this COL crisis.

I can see it is an issue if it isn't clear and at some at places where there is no kiosk to pay at as an alternative though.

This is great news, normally it’s only £99 and my tank takes about £115, so this has always annoyed me.

It does depend which card I use, I rarely have more than £120 in my account, one card helpfully checks my balance and shows me how much I can fill up by on the screen so I can't use more than my available balance.
Other ones take out the £100 and reverses it once I've paid.

They should be used for purchases in which you won’t immediately have what you have paid for eg custom made furniture, holidays, online shopping in general etc.

If something goes wrong with the purchase, the money can then (in most circumstances) be recovered, whereas if paid for with a debit card, it is just lost.

Using credit cards for petrol payments or weekly shops defeats the purpose.

I get .5% cashback on everything i spend on my cc. Adds up over a month. Doesn't see
Pointless to me.

How does it prevent fuel being stolen?

If the card is not accepted, people can just say "Pay cashier" , fill up and then drive off.

But the point is that they preauthorise £120 and it can sometimes take a few days for that £120 to drop off.

If you don't have a 'spare' £120 in your account, you're at risk of a DD bouncing, or not being able to buy food or other essentials, with that money, because the bank is holding it.

It's the modern day equivalent of when we used to pay by cheque a day or two before pay day, knowing that there would be money in the account by the time the cheque went through the clearing system. Technically illegal/in breach of the banks T&Cs, but no harm done in most cases. However, when too many people take advantage and the cheque bounces/transaction is declined, it is a problem for the retailer.

I’m in Ireland and only have experience of filling up in my local area (no Tesco’s). Here you pre-select the max amount of petrol you want to buy and then the pump automatically stops when it’s reached that amount and that’s all you pay for.

I think it’s ludicrous that a massive company like Tesco can keep hold of your money for even a day.

Imagine if your grocery supermarket also took £120 every time you bought some food shopping and gave you your change two days later?? No-one would think that was ok.

I always pay in the kiosk you don't get money off vouchers with Pay at Pump.

Have you ever used an unmanned pump before now? It’s been this way for as long as they existed!
They don’t charge you £120, it’s preauthorises it so that you can’t not pay for the petrol.

I have bought petrol for both of our cars this week. Both times I have only paid for what we spent. Using pay at the pump. Maybe it's selected Tesco's.

But the point is that they preauthorise £120 and it can sometimes take a few days for that £120 to drop off

That has never once happened to me and I've used pay at pump every week or so for years.

They preauthorise it for the few minutes it takes you to fill your car with petrol

Meh it’s hardly a problem. If you don’t want the hold on your card, simply go and pay at kiosk or use a different petrol station.

No , it is area dependent. Ours doesn’t have it either.

it’s like most of these efforts of retailers to protect themselves from theft, the measures cost them extra to operate, so they put them on where they think theft is most likely.

It's reasonable if you have £100 spare and live near a station with a kiosk. A bit shit if you don't.

Use the kiosk and not pay at pump. I hate my money disappearing and not coming back for days. If I had to pay at pump I would use my credit card

It's being rolled-out to all Tesco petrol stations.

You do realise even those previously comfortable middle income families are now struggling in the cost of living crisis. Alot of people are using up savings they thought they would never have to touch. So yes, people are struggling near to pay day these days, even if they have always been financially careful.

I stopped buying fuel at Tesco for this reason. Used to be £1 deducted, suddenly £120 and I don’t recall seeing any sign on the pump. Use a small village filling station now and it’s actually 1p a litre cheaper than Tesco.

It doesn't charge the £120 it ringfences it so that it is sure that the whole total is available when it charges the real amount. They upped it from £99 pretty recently, presumably to reflect that a large car can cost more than £99 to fill up.

However it can take up to 2 weeks to un-ringfence the money.

They do it for some online supermarket shops and some flights too.

The system is set up for people shopping on their credit cards with basically no limit.

And why £120? My car doesn't have that big a tank.

But mine does. The pump doesn’t know how big your car’s fuel tank is.

I suppose they could use ANPR to check with DVLA and adjust the amount to the type of car you are driving.