Yeah. Who’d have guessed that they wouldn’t take some random 3rd country cards, post brexit…
yes, I think the issue still exists with UK issued cards and garage automated fuel pumps. It’s been the case the whole 14 years I have been driving in France so, like you, very early on obtained a card which would work (a prepaid Caxton card to be exact at the time). The Caxton card had its own problems… as a prepaid card the system works by taking a sizeable “deposit” for the fuel before delivery commences which is somewhat alien to UK issued cards. This means that if there is only 30€ left on the card (even if you only want 20€’s worth of fuel) the card will attempt to reserve IIRC 100€ for the transaction and if there are insufficient funds on the card it will refuse it. Often, this is corrected the next day as the caisse claim the actual cost and release the “bond” which restores order to the card but it can be quite disconcerting when a card holder believes he has sufficient funds available on the card and it is refused. There used to be a lot of activity on the AngloInfo forums about this in the day.
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LeClerc and Carrefour are quick to refund the difference between your fuel and the 100€ usually within 10min, Super U on the other hand can take days or you get it back in chunks leaving you totaling it up to see if they have ripped you off.
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That is now happening in the UK too in regards to the transaction amount
It may be something to do with different systems. Lots of German cards are not accepted at pay at pumps (automats) because they require a signature, which they don’t in Germany.
You will find the same petrol station that has a small cabin towards the exit with Madame working mornings in the cabine or in the service station office, will be fine to get petrol in the mornings because you just get petrol and use your card to pay Madame the amount you’ve filled.
It’s when there are no staff attending that there is the problem.
One station I use has only card machines but before I fill I go into the office and ask them to program the amount I want to pay, onto my pump. The pump then delivers the exact value and stops.
The first time they did what they do in America and wanted to run my credit card through for that amount or take cash before I went back and filled up. Now they know me they just program it. Apparently it’s a request they get a lot especially from young people.
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The Italian system is better - you just enter on the machine next to the pump the amount you want to pay, prepay card or cash then fill. Most stopped taking cash though for obvious reasons.
Total 24/24 who always accepted my British card at the pump, no longer do. It’s a shame.
I didn’t know you could do that - thanks for the tip 
The same has happened to me on two occasions. Both times, the holidaymaker had euros with them so I paid for their fuel with my French card and they gave me the cash.
But isn’t that part of the fuel pump game getting it to stop at exactly the correct amount first time?
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For some reason I’ve always found this harder with French pumps
not if the pump wants to pre-authorise 100-125 Euros on your card (you don’t get a choice pumps are programmed to pre-authorise a fixed amount that can vary with type of fuel) when you know your tank and/ or your card can only take 20-50 Euros… hence why the garage commented they get this request a lot from young people… and me
I only use the pay in kiosk pump - I don’t use my card at the pump unless absolutely needed.
We tend to get our petrol at the local Intermarché and haven’t needed to pre-authorise so far. However, we don’t use UK cards here at all apart from the dual purpose Wise one as a backup.
Tell me Angela… how do you move funds to Wise and is there a fee for doing so? I’m particularly interested in moving either Sterling or Euro to Wise (appreciate there is always a fee for currency conversions in Wise).
No there isn’t a fee moving funds to Wise. There is a extremely small fee (a few centimes if I remember rightly) involved in transferring money from one of the “accounts” there to a bank. It may only apply to the euro holding rather than sterling since I have never moved sterling out of the account except to convert it to euros!
I’ll PM you…
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Last summer I moved euros to my Wise euro wallet from my French bank account when I have wanted to reimburse our Dutch gite guests their 170 euro security deposit at the end of their holiday. The move of euros from my C/A account to my Wise wallet cost 70c. The transfer on to our Dutch guests a/c in Holland cost 63c.
I used Wise rather than trying to set up a new virement in C/A because it was much easier.
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