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?

Nice to know that when I left my abusive ex and hadn't two pennies to rub together whilst I waited for benefits that I wasn't adulting properly.

And here was me thinking I was doing the right thing. Silly me.

But it's debit and credit cards so their bitchy post was moot anyway.

We got caught out big time in France. I'd got enough in the account for fuel and a meal but I wasn't expecting the pay at pump (no other payment option) to take out £150 as a reserved payment. Card was then declined at the restaurant later that night. Fortunately we had other means but it took a while for it to process through the French systems

What a patronising comment.

Not all of us have that option because every penny is accounted for, the fact you don’t understand that shows you don’t have a very good grasp of “adulting”

And yes, people can pay at the till, but if the system has changed and you don’t realise then for some people it will come as a shock, because surprise surprise, they rely on the money in their bank to survive.

This happebed to me now i only pay at kiosk

This has always been perfectly clear to me, so I assume there must be some sort of sign near the pumps. Until recently, the charge was a bit less though...I think around £100.

If you don't want to pay that and wait for the refund, just pay in store?

I find this laughable.

Kate is an adult. She is good at adulting and managing her money. Kate's fridge freezer broke so she got a new one this week knowing that she gets paid on Tuesday. The fridge was £700. Normally she'd have about £900 in her account. She goes shopping and buys her shop thinking £100, that gives me another £100 til Tuesday. That's easy. She drives a tiny little efficient car that only holds £45 worth of fuel cos she's sensible like that. She thinks 'I need £20 petrol to last til Tuesday'. She's managing her money well you see. She goes to get her petrol and is fucked because they want £120 so she can get £20 of petrol. She's got the money cos she's managing it well. Never been in the red Kate cos she's a good girl and does her maths. But petrol station says no, because she's not loaded enough. Not that she hasn't got the money, cos she has. Fridge was an exceptional one off. On Tuesday Kate will have £2500 in available funds. But she's screwed because now Kate can't actually get home or to work until Tuesday because of all the gas guzzling swindlers who have taken the piss.

Kate is the very virtue of living within her means but still gets caught out.

Ban All Audi Drivers. Make the drivers retake their test where failure to use indicators is a 6 month driving ban.

Several of the supermarkets near me no longer have this as an option. It's pay at pump only.

As someone with a severe mobility problem I think this would probably disproportionately affect disabled drivers. I rarely go for petrol alone, as I would have to unload my wheelchair to get across the forecourt to pay in the shop, but can just about edge around the car to fill up at pay at pump if I haven’t got a passenger to help. I know quite a few disabled people who have the same problem. You’re supposed to be able to get a member of staff to come out and help if you’re disabled, but in my experience they won’t as they’re usually the only member of staff there - that’s a problem across all forecourts, not just Tesco. So many disabled drivers will e affected by this.

Fwiw I have enough in my account and have a range of cards available. I still think it's fucked up, that I have to lay down nearly three times the amount that it takes to fill my car to get petrol.

You should be told in large print, perhaps even the equivalent of a tick box to touch before you are able to put in any fuel. You should always have the pay at kiosk option.

I don't blame Tesco and any other fuel provider for the policy though, as a prevention against theft.

If you have £60 in the bank it will authorise £60

I have a 70 litre tank. I usually fill up when my light comes on (so usually when there's about 60-90 miles left in the tank). On Monday I filled up and 63.03 litres cost me £99.52 (it was £1.579 per litre of diesel)

I think the average tank size will be about 50 - 60 litres (Focus is about 60). So at the moment the average tank to fill up would cost less than £120. I presume it's there for people like me who can quite easily hit over £100 (think the most I've paid was £107ish - price I paid Monday if I was running on fumes would have been about £110.53 to fill up).

I've never noticed the £120 hold, but then I would never pay at pump using a debit card (like I'd never make a transaction online using a debit card). I always use a credit card I pay off every month for stuff like that. So any hold wouldn't be noticed by me as I have a stupid credit limit and only use a small proportion of that limit.

Yes, supermarkets especially seem to be moving more towards completely automated petrol stations, or at least where they are unstaffed outside peak hours.

Petrol is a very low margin product. The government makes most of the money out of it due to taxation. After that the producers. The people who sell it to the public don't make that much at all. So they need to do it as efficiently as possible, with automated pumps and effective prevention against people stealing it.

Or you can go to Shell/Esso etc, but the petrol is likely to cost more but at least you'll be able to pay in person because they also want you to buy things in their shop.

Not standard, it only happens in some of their garages, and has only been in place since 2021.

Yep. This is how it works. It will authorise £120 (depending on funds) but it will only charge the amount you take.

Not always. They might be able to change the system to do that, but currently, the ones at Asda at least want £99.

As I found out when I had £70 in my account and no petrol at all in my car, which can be filled for £50-60.

Fortunately I was able to use online banking on my phone to transfer money into the account that I had the card for, but otherwise I'd have been stuck.

And if you only have 60 in your account it will authorise 60. It won't decline your card. I bought petrol yesterday at Morrsons and used a card that I only had just over 80 quid on (payday today!), it authorised it and I paid for 40 of petrol. I've just checked bank statement and the only transaction is 40.02.

They don’t actually take out the money from your account, just place a hold on it.

The problem is more if you have £140 in your account, and knowing this decide to only put in £20 but the system default remains £120 unless their are insufficient funds.

If the pending charge isn't immediately reversed (and this is the case frequently) you can quickly become unstuck at the next place you try and purchase something.

I guess this is why it's a good idea to fill up AFTER you've done your food shop not before...

This has literally never happened to me. Ever. I can check my bank account immediately after putting 40 in and it will say 40.

Well, yes, @cakeorwine but I meant more financially. Those that sometimes have less than £120 in the bank and struggle and those that think you should always have a cleared credit card (if you don't have £120 in the bank, you likely don't have a clear credit card waiting to be spent) or always have spare cash for such a thing because that's basic adulting. Unfortunately, particularly during the current cost of living crisis, this isn't an option for some.

Exactly. My mum is low income, she only gets carers allowance, and maybe a bit of income support now. She's on less than 500pm. She needs her car and she now has COPD so can't walk far, despite caring for my sister. But she has to traipse into the shop unnessesarily, in order to keep her own fucking money. That she needs to pay her 339pm DD bill to keep the house warm for my disabled sister and herself. All these little things that others think nothing of, just add to that stone that others have to carry.

Great Britain, indeed.

Yep, it is/was being rolled out in stages across the UK.

My local Tesco introduced the £120 authorisation straight off the bat. A quick google tells me that Tesco increased it from £99 to £120 in October 2022, so the pre-authorisation has only been in place here for a maximum of five months.

I don’t buy fuel but when I did always used a credit card for this reason.
That and fraud, card fraud at pay at pump is quite common.