The news is here
Every petrol pump 'will be prepay by 2011'
tinyurl.com/5fkva5
I've never used prepay system so far. My question is, how do I fill up to the brim if I already paid for certain amount of fuel?
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I think it just deducts from the card whatever you put in. I like the idea, but would be uneasy about being hundreds of miles from home with just one card.
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You don't pay a set amount - you swipe your card then fill up to the limit authorised by the pump, currently £70 at Asda, which is still low enough for me to brim the tank.
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Many people must mistrust these pumps, I use them all the time as they are often unused when there are queues at the post pay pumps.
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Many people must mistrust these pumps I use them all the time as they are often unused when there are queues at the post pay pumps.
No idea why they "mistrust them" I've used them for a few years now when my Local Tesco first installed them, use the Asda ones now. NEVER had a problem with them at all, the only problem I've heard about is when people use the SOLO cards, it usually takes at least £20 off the card even if you only put, lets say a tenners worth in, although you do get the difference back after 3 days I believe.
I'm all for all pumps having this, although it could send more of indi's under and force them to close due to the massive cost of having to get new pumps, one the other hand it will clamp out at lot of "drive off's" at the station
Lee
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I use my debit card maybe twice a year, this will take some adjustment if indeed it does happen. Given the figures on how many people still use cash, I wonder if they will actually go through with it.
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A lot of people still use cash because it's black money-ie.no tax or VAT paid.
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I pay cash for my private vehicles' fuel - it's not black money in my case - but I'm sure it is in some people's case. I use cash because I've had my card cloned by a local garage. I'll happily use a prepay pump and credit card though.
My company car uses fuel paid for on a fuel card - so I hope these pumps will read registration number also (and mileage?). Will it ask me to remove my crash helmet when I'm on the bike ? :-)
No doubt there will be still be many people leaving their car at the pump while they go and buy a few groceries or browsr for a video etc.
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jc2, sorry to sound ignorant, but how does this "black" money work with fuel purchases?
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I use these all the time for my car, but when filling up my girlfreinds car I always opt for post pay as she has a fuel card. Its a right old faf entering the car registration and mileage at the pump.
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Sounds unlikly to me, don't petrol stations make alot of their profit from the shop?
I can imagine alot of people wouldn't go into the shop for groceries if they were paying at the pump.
I would think it more likely that the practice of not switching the pump on until the customer has paid up front would become more widespread, although most places only have a sign saying you have to pay first, but in practice don't enforce that.
And I also want to know what this "black money" is!
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"Black money"-Do you want a receipt for that,Sir,or are you paying cash?.So you end the week with a pocketful of notes that haven't gone near a bank or accountant and they have to be spent in the same way-so you pay cash in petrol stations,supermarkets,restaurants etc, so there is still no contact with banks,accountants etc.A number of people in the EU came unstuck when the countries' currencies changed to the EURO-people were turning up at banks wanting to change large quantities of the the old currencies into Euros-the tax authorities wanted to know where all this money had come from.
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I would expect the most likely model in addition to the current 'pay at pump' would be a prepay card topped-up in the shop ala mobile Topup and utilities for 'people on low incomes' and inserted into the pump at the time of fuelling.
Edited by Hamsafar on 21/08/2008 at 15:02
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Black pesetas fuelled a massive property boom in Spain prior to the Euro.
Particularly around Galicia as the black pesetas were mostly drug money.
A much smarter friend than me made millions by predicting and exploiting the situation.
Anyhoo back to motoring...
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Also bought with German,Spanish and French "under the bed" money.Now the taxmen are catching up.
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I don't think this will happen becauase, as others have pointed out, the petrol station makes a considerable amount of money from it's shop. If customers pay-at-pump then they won't enter the shop, so won't buy anything else.
What I can see happening, however, is that there will be something installed in petrol stations like a raisable post or ramp, something similar to what's used in some car parks.
When the pump is enabled the post will be raised, so the vehicle won't be able to drive off without paying. When the fuel is paid for, either at the pump or in the shop, the post will be lowered enabling the car to drive off safely.
I'm surprised that this system hasn't already been introduced.
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Let's go back to 1974.
Drive to local petrol station, drive up to pump, tender your best crease - free £1 note,
lay note flat on drawer of machine, ram it home a few times until it accepts it, fill car with petrol until pump cuts out - beautiful - all three gallons !
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It could be quite difficult to get those machines to believe in a worn pound note.
How many people here have used as legal tender a ten-shilling note, let alone a big white fiver printed on one side only? The first time I went to Nigeria there were still five-bob notes being used there, and very squalid and illegible they were...
The Zimbabwean friend who gave me a couple of half-billion dollar notes a few weeks ago has been there again. Last night he gave me a five billion dollar note, but only had one fifty-billion dollar note so kept it for himself.
A week or so back Zimbabwe lopped ten zeroes off its currency. The new, slimmed down money lost half its value within 24 hours. Just a joke for fat cats, but not for the far more numerous thin ones.
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One of the French BRs will confirm that some French supermarkets have already moved entirely this way. I certainly came across a couple of new Geant hypermarket installations the other week which were card only when I wanted to use up my euros. However, feathering my way through the depths of the Auvergne on a Sunday morning I was relieved to spot a closed village garage with a pre-pay pump: choose from on-screen instructions in seven languages, instant acceptance of my UK card and something like a ?120 limit.
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Our local ASDA is card only-no cashier.
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You know it won't be long before we never speak to anyone who doesn't happen to live in the same house. You can shop online, bank online, work online from home, socialise online and now we will buy petrol from a machine. I sort of dislike this trend.
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It's becoming possible to live a complete professional and social life without ever seeing another human being in the flesh, or even in image if you choose. Indeed this place right here is an example of the trend.
Oo-er.
Edited by Lud on 21/08/2008 at 18:25
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>You know it won't be long before we never speak to anyone who doesn't happen to live in >the same house.
Too late, we dont talk in our house, its done by wifi, instant mesenger or txt msg. The only one who gets spoken to is the dog.
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Re Harmattan's comment re French supermarkets, 3 years ago, I met some that had manned barriers at the only forecourt exit, bit like a toll-booth set-up. Fill vehicle, and then move off to pay at the booth. No or minimal queuing if you bought only fuel as you didn't have to stand in line with all the grocery / wine shoppers.
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Yes - I used petrol stations like this in France earlier this year.
Some stations had two sets of pumps - the ones that were prepay by credit card had an exit without barrier; the others you filled up and then went to the cashier at the barrier.
I thought it was a good solution, so we won't be seeing it here :-(
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The petrol stations being introduced by Waitrose are non attended card only stations.
Wasnt there some H&S law about public fueling stations requiring an attendant? or is that a figment of my imagination?
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Would seem to be a good idea to have someone to hit the emergency off switch when someone drops their cigarette into a pool of spilt unleaded.
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Wasnt there some H&S law about public fueling stations requiring an attendant? or is >> that a figment of my imagination?
My parents local filling station (Asda in Wheatley just outside Oxford) has been permanently unmanned for the past couple of years now. 'Pay at Pump', or nothing. For years it operated unmanned outside of store opening hours, with cashiers at other times. Then they decided to do away with the cashiers altogether.
Actually, this station was a unique design, even when manned. You filled the car, then drove to a toll booth style payment hut at the exit. I clearly remember it from childhood.
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2011 is a tad optimistic in my opinion. I had my oil changed in a country garage yesterday and had to go to the post office to draw cash out to pay them as they did not have a machine to swipe the card.
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2011 is a tad optimistic in my opinion. I had my oil changed in a country garage yesterday and had to go to the post office to draw cash out to pay them as they did not have a machine to swipe the card.
Sounds like my tyre fitter. Cash only with him.
As for the Asda and drive through booths - Asda Cardiff Gate has a similar set up - no pay at pump though.
I hate it, there's no roof over the drive through part so when it's rianing (not an uncommon occurence in South Wales!) the inside of the car door gets wet through as you sort out the payment - it can't be good for all the electronics now embedded in a car door.
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Morrison's are currently converting all of their pumps to 'Pay at Kiosk or Pay at pump' option ones.
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Congleton Shell has optional pay at the pump on every pump.
9 times out of ten the screen shows 'Sorry pay at pump is not working, please pay inside'.
That was well worthwhile then.
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9 times out of ten the screen shows 'Sorry pay at pump is not working, please pay inside'.
In my nearest Shell, 10 out 10 times I see that message :)
In fact, I've never seen anyone to use that facility on that pump!
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so how does this work with certain supermarkets offering 5p off a litre when you spend £50 or more. Will this stop -probably
Also most garages who offer this only allow £50-60 which is useless at today's cost my car needs £90 when I fill up -and I prefer to fill up large and less often
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so how does this work with certain supermarkets offering 5p off a litre when you spend £50 or more. >>
The supermarket tills will simply print a bar code on the bottom of your receipt and you'll scan it at the pump in the same way you scan your loyalty card. It will be a unique code so once used, the code will be invalidated on a central computer.
The only way I see pre-pay being dodgy is if you pay cash up front - in the US, you don't get a receipt until you settle up! I can imagine in the UK having a dodgy counter assistant who says - "but you only gave me forty quid"
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Looks like the congleton shell is as bad as the uttoxeter shell where the pumps usually say the same! I don't know who implemented their IT systems but they clearly want shooting as everywhere else the pay at pump idea seems to work all the time.
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Who cares, so long as the price falls?
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Asda gives you your discount at the pump(as long as you use their card).
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Wasnt there some H&S law about public fueling stations requiring an attendant?
They meet the letter (if not the spirit) of the law by monitoring the sites by CCTV from the store.
The same way that the meet the DDA by having a button on one of the pumps that a disabled driver can press and eventually someone will come from the store to help them.
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