Petrol stations introduce new £99 charge to pay at the pump.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/08/petrol-stations-introduce-new-99-charge-pay-pump/

Once its rolled out at all supermarkets ,the sheeple will go along with it because " its great no to have to go to the kiosk."
Just another step towards cash less.

It is a pre-authorisation (pre-auth) charge. It just puts a hold on those funds in your account for about up to five days, then after filling it sends through the charge for the amount spent.

Visa/Mastercard bring out mandates twice a year that dictate to the card banking system how things will change (chip + pin was brought in to basically put the responsibility of fraud on the card-holder as only they should know their pin). I guess the pay at pump supermarkets have just held off as they knew that this would create push back, and it is pushed as fraud prevention (e.g. consumer proves they have the funds before getting the product) so the risk is on them and not the consumer.

Asda uses its own payment system that they developed a number of years ago. This pre-auth stuff will continue to develop and in the full cashless, which is coming (remember the BOE papers stating the only thing keeping cash in circulation is them and cash points, no coincidence about open banking changes and no coincidence that all the different banks are closing branches hand over fist) then these pre-auths will develop to entering into stores e.g. average cost of shopping £50 then pre-auth this before you are allowed in to a supermarket/shop/motorway/city centre/region, pollution charges etc.

Which is why in the article they fleshed out the cost of a tank of fuel with oil/butty/drink/confec etc to get over the £99 mark, which you never buy at pay at pump (or at least I never have anywhere in the country) as it is just for fuel. The fuel by itself is around £75 or less and I can fill our average size car for about £55/60 but the idea is about getting people in the mindset of pay as you go.

Once fully automated (smart) then those who don't have the pre-auth funds, just won't be able to go...anywhere (or at least be very restricted) as it will just be 'computer says no', door won't open, pump won't release, barrier won't lift etc etc etc etc.

I use "pay at the pump" whenever I can, to save having to queue or take my helmet off if on the bike.  I can't really see a downside if paying by credit card in any case.  

An unexpected charge of £99 is a concern though.  In my case I take care not to run up a big balance on a credit card, so credit limit isn't an issue.  It's more a concern about another thing to go wrong if they apply the charge then fail to remove it.   And as for bumping it up to account for purchases in addition to fuel, that's bonkers.

It seems Morrisons where I normally fill the bike is still using just the £1 charge, on my account I can see that as a pending transaction from when I filled up yesterday, the real transaction hasn't appeared yet.

If the pre-auth payment is not taken within about 5 days it expires and then when they try to take the post-auth payment it will fail and they will need to contact you, which is unlikely as most financial institutions settle daily they are just slow to update your account.

It costs me less than £10 to fill my bike and that is with the 'super' so a £99 hold on a card, irrespective of credit/debit is obscene.

The bumping up was in the article where they did a so called break down of a motorway pay at pump stop compared to a supermarket pay at pump stop and they fleshed it out (with products we don't buy at pay at pump, at least not yet) to over £100 to justify the pre-auth charge (hold on funds). The actual fuel in both examples came under £99.

Morrisons may still be only doing a pre-auth of £1 at the moment as this used to be the previous standard for this type of transaction, in the past it was lower.

In reality a pre-auth can be whatever the vendor want's to set it at as it is just to validate the card but this is being dictated by VISA/Mastercard who dictate to the card banking industry, point of sale devices (POS/chip pin). cash points etc etc as they create the 'standards' for transactions and historically it was their ISO interfaces that were used to support transactions hence on most bank cards it says VISA/Mastercard even if it is a Natwest card etc, as Natwest provide the back link ISO issuer (ISSR) interface to the switch and it is VISA/Mastercard ISO interface acquired (ACQR).

It is presented as fraud prevention, or if you watched ceylons expose on the papers yesterday it is to 'fight obesity' .

It is automation and pay as you go. They will be upgrading/removing cashiers from them all in due course. It will also get people off the road, imagine those on low incomes that live from wage to wage, having a £99 hold on funds in their account could prevent them from being able to go and buy their shopping.

The only time I ever use pay at pump now is if the station is closed due to the hour of day, else I intentionally inconvenience myself and queue up to interact with other's. That goes the same with any other 'self service', online banking or other so called conveniences.

Simple solution: pay with cash, with their impending plan to remove all cash from society then now is the time to get more people to deal only in cash and this could provide the impetus to make more people only deal in cash, if enough people deal only in cash then it will serve to slow their plans right down, or force then to abolish the removal od cash altogether.