Tesco & Asda Tills Offline??

saintscouple

I bank with Lloyds and access my on line banking everyday to check my pending transactions.
But what i've noticed over the last week or so is my Tesco & Asda transactions no longer show as pended and the amount isn't debited from my account till a few days later, it doesn't even effect my 'available balance'. Also there is no delay in my card being authorised, as soon as i enter my pin it immediately approves and tells me to remove my card.
Everywhere else i shop the card waits to get authorised and then it shows in my 'pending transactions' in on-line banking. As it used to do at Tesco & Asda.

Anyone else notice this change, or perhaps can explain why this is suddenly happening?

I have a Lloyds Classic visa debit card.

colsten

Sounds like you either pay less than you used to and are below the Tesco/ASDA shop floor limit, or they have upped their limits.

Banks will only show a transaction once the retailer has told them about the purchase.

username

I noticed this too when I was down in the South West recently and shopped at a Tesco there.

They don't have contactless readers down there but I did notice it was instant (but didn't check the balance afterwards) on all of our cards - we (as an group) all have contactless/offline auth enabled cards. Back home in London they have contactless so just use that to pay, so any auth delay on c&p is noticeable.

Sounds like they've tinkered with the floor limits or card processing rules, so that cards that support offline auth will work without having to phone home unless they need to. Certainly not a bad thing if they've done this.

stclair

I'm Lloyds customer and have noticed my Tesco purchases don't pend on my online banking.

molerat

Both show as pending straight away using my 123 CC.

Archi_Bald

There will be different results, based on the amounts you spend, and based on the shop floor limit in different shops.

nyermen

As has been said, floor limit - or if you have an "offline card" (eg. Contactless), then they just check it's not tagged stolen (I believe). It's quite common in stores now - I've noticed halfords, pret a manger, itsu, and others don't check my visa (which is not contactless).

Did you get a new card recently (it might now allow offline?) Or it may be the new £30 limit on contactless has impacted other areas.

saintscouple

Just done transactions of over £30 - less than £40 at both Tesco and Asda, and again not showing on my pending transactions.
I did prefer when they went pending as it was an easy tool to use to ensure i don't go overdrawn, so looks i'm going to have to go back old skool style and keep receipts and balance them myself with my available balance.
I hope it's no a ploy by the banks to get more people overdrawn and hence charge them fee's, which coincidentally i was approached by Lloyd's a few weeks a go, asking if i want to add 'Control' to my Classic account, it costs £10 a month and prevents my account going in to a 'unplanned overdraft' and not charging me 'returned item fees'........ I now wonder if the 2 are connected???

Sorry, missed the question - my card is not contactless.... i didn't qualify, i have a new debit card as i downgraded from the silver account. I also don't qualify for an overdraft.

Aquamania

saintscouple wrote: »

Just done transactions of over £30 - less than £40 at both Tesco and Asda, and again not showing on my pending transactions.
I did prefer when they went pending as it was an easy tool to use to ensure i don't go overdrawn, so looks i'm going to have to go back old skool style and keep receipts and balance them myself with my available balance.
I hope it's no a ploy by the banks to get more people overdrawn and hence charge them fee's, which coincidentally i was approached by Lloyd's a few weeks a go, asking if i want to add 'Control' to my Classic account, it costs £10 a month and prevents my account going in to a 'unplanned overdraft' and not charging me 'returned item fees'........ I now wonder if the 2 are connected???

Sorry, missed the question - my card is not contactless.... i didn't qualify, i have a new debit card as i downgraded from the silver account. I also don't qualify for an overdraft.

I would expect floor limits for both Asda & Tesco to be in excess of £40. They had floor limits in excess of that years ago before the superfast communications we have today - remember the days they used to manually swipe your card using carbon paper and having to phone up if over the floor limit?

Nowadays, with superfast and easy electronic communication, then floor limits are often ignored and they check everything, just to be on the safe side.

But if communications are down (could be a comms error their side or simply too many transactions for the the card issuer to handle instantaneously) the the store may revert to floor limits to avoid keeping customers waiting unneccesarily.