Supermarket incorrectly charged me for petrol - NEED ADVICE

arran123

the other day i went to a supermarket petrol station to fill my car up. i used one of those machines where you put in your card, type your pin in and then it charges you whatever the amount of petrol is that you put in.

I checked my bank balance today expecting there to be a pending transaction of £25 from the supermarket.
Instead it says the pending transaction is only £1!

I have checked the receipt and that definitely says it was £25 worth of petrol.

What's my stance with this?
can the supermarket come after me for the remaining £24?
have i just got lucky and got £25 worth of petrol for £1?
OR do supermarkets automatically debit £1 from your account, and then debit the rest?

This is my first time using this method of buying petrol so thats why im a bit confused!

thank you.

DPJames

Pretty sure that £1 will be for something else, and the £25 will come out in the next day or two.

cool-dog

The £1 is a pre-authorization, to check the card is valid.

The full amount will and can still be taken.

TheBanker

It'll sort its self out in the next couple of days.

As cool-dog says, the £1 is a pre-authorisation, this is to check your card is valid. The proper debit for £25 will take a couple of days to work its way through the system. In theory can take up to either 3 or 6 months, I can't remember which. In practice it usually takes a couple of days.

Don't spend the money again as if the £25 debit puts you into an overdraft you may incur bank charges. This catches people out sometimes if they check their balance and don't realise there are pending card payments still to be deducted.

redfox

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marliepanda

Cool dog has it on the nose.

The £1 just tells them the card is valid. It preauthorises the amount, usually £99 (irregardless of what you actually have in your account.)

The £1 will disappear and the £25 will be taken.

This happens with a lot of purchases so you may see it again.

drobe

Good job you didn't get petrol in the days when they took an impression of your card and it took days, sometimes weeks, for the debit to appear on your bank statement.


But then in these days the only way to check your balance was to wait until you got a statement through the post.

DCFC79

Yes OP this is perfectly normal.