All Basic Accounts Will Be Affected Sooner Or Later

renegadefm

All basic bank accounts will not be able to be used at card only readers at fuel stations at some stage in the near future which could leave people vunerable and unable to fuel the car.

Halifax started this new rule on the 18th December 2017 which has been requested from Visa. And other banks will soon follow.

It's meant to prevent people going overdrawn so easily. Yet its ok for them to run out of fuel and be left stranded. I'm annoyed why hasen't this been published anywhere, or customers warned of the change as I only found out after my card wouldn't work at the asda fuel pump.

Basically I find this discusting and very dangerous potentially leaving women and children at risk of being stranded somewhere without fuel.

d123

renegadefm wrote: »

All basic bank accounts will not be able to be used at card only readers at fuel stations at some stage in the near future which could leave people vunerable and unable to fuel the car.

Halifax started this new rule on the 18th December 2017 which has been requested from Visa. And other banks will soon follow.

It's meant to prevent people going overdrawn so easily. Yet its ok for them to run out of fuel and be left stranded. I'm annoyed why hasen't this been published anywhere, or customers warned of the change as I only found out after my card wouldn't work at the asda fuel pump.

Other banks have done so for years, I can remember this discussion when Tesco first rolled out pay@pump and on-line only cards couldn’t be used.

Sounds like you’ve been lucky if your basic account has been allowed it up till now.

PS you probably also won’t be able to buy train tickets onboard trains either as that requires off line transactions to be allowed as well.

Basically I find this discusting and very dangerous potentially leaving women and children at risk of being stranded somewhere without fuel.

To be frank, it isn’t the banks job to make sure you refuel when required, there are plenty of normal petrol stations with a cashier out there...

renegadefm

Yeah but I wasent notifyed of the change. And I only found out when my card wouldnt work. So how could I drive miles to another station with hardly any fuel. I just dont understand why its only fuel pumps which are affected. There are loads of ways to use cards.

renegadefm

d123 wrote: »

Other banks have done so for years, I can remember this discussion when Tesco first rolled out pay@pump and on-line only cards couldn’t be used.

Sounds like you’ve been lucky if your basic account has been allowed it up till now.

PS you probably also won’t be able to buy train tickets onboard trains either as that requires off line transactions to be allowed as well.



To be frank, it isn’t the banks job to make sure you refuel when required, there are plenty of normal petrol stations with a cashier out there...

I never knew banks been doing this for years. The guy from Halifax said this is a new thing only just started. And informed me other banks will soon follow. I tried upgrading my account but they couldnt provide it for me.

d123

renegadefm wrote: »

I never knew banks been doing this for years. The guy from Halifax said this is a new thing only just started. And informed me other banks will soon follow. I tried upgrading my account but they couldnt provide it for me.

A thread from 2014 with complaints about certain NatWest cards not working for pay@pump or on trains.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5102262

Even older, here’s one from 2012

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4204637

TheShape

renegadefm wrote: »

Yeah but I wasent notifyed of the change. And I only found out when my card wouldnt work. So how could I drive miles to another station with hardly any fuel. I just dont understand why its only fuel pumps which are affected. There are loads of ways to use cards.

There is always a chance that any card could be declined or unusable for any number of reasons. Don't leave yourself low on fuel with only one available payment option.

colsten

renegadefm wrote: »

Y I just dont understand why its only fuel pumps which are affected.

It isn't only fuel pumps which are affected. Any offline payments are affected - e.g. on trains, planes, anywhere else without a live internet connection, and most places abroad. Relying on a debit card, or on any single method of payment for that matter, as your only method of payment does carry the risk that you are being left high and dry.

Wheres_My_Cashback

renegadefm wrote: »

Basically I find this discusting and very dangerous potentially leaving women and children at risk of being stranded somewhere without fuel.

:rotfl::rotfl: Renegade, never one to exaggerate or blow things out of proportion like all good T's do ;)

agrinnall

I find it difficult to believe that Halifax made no effort to inform you of the change, this is a significant change and they would have issued new Terms and Conditions to include it. If you get paper statements there should have been an insert with one of those which you probably threw away, having not realised the significance.

JuicyJesus

The reason is simple, people were deliberately opening basic bank accounts, buying shitloads of petrol with no money in the account then leaving the accounts overdrawn.

You're not supposed to be able to go overdrawn with a BBA. That's the point of them. This was a loophole and they have closed it.

18cc

The reason (I presume) that people have a basic bank account is normally because they have had some sort of troubled financial history.

It used to be that people in this situation could not get a bank account at all, but then basic accounts were introduced so that they could at least have some sort of banking.

In my opinion this is very constructive of financial institutions - everyone makes mistakes financially and this is a way to build up again following a financial disaster

However, one stipulation is that you can't go overdrawn. Thus, you cannot use your debit card in a place that is 'offline' and cannot check your bank balance at the point of sale.

These are just the facts - you will have to plan accordingly.

Making statements about women and children being stranded won't change the situation!

Where I do agree with you is that this information has not been widely publicised, although I would hope it is in the T&Cs and product literature when you open a basic bank account.