Tesco pay at pump declined?

I always use PaP and it works, today I had the funds in my account but the tesco pump said card not accepted and the £1 it usually takes said declined, but no reason why.

Is there anything wrong with this?

Was it this evening?

If it was this evening, there were a few card payment issues earlier. They should now be resolved.

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I dont think this is a Monzo issue. Pretty sure pay at pump have started freezing much more, like £100 from your account. This may be causing issues with your account?

The £1 was declined yesterday evening, it just says declined - no reason as to why.

Ask in-app chat to investigate and tell you the exact error code from the MasterCard processor service (and please do report back here too - I’m curious!).

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Because pay-at-pump machines charge a final amount a few days after the first transaction, your account could be charged an amount that’s more than your current balance.

This could result in your balance being reduced to a negative figure, which is called an unauthorised overdraft. You would then be unable to use your card until the negative balance was cleared. :cry:

We want to make sure that you’re always able to use your card, so we may decline pay-at-pump transactions if there isn’t enough money in your account to cover the potential cost.

I hope that makes things a bit clearer :+1:

Please don’t ask us to do that :slight_smile: COps find it much easier to diagnose issues when you give them a clear description of what is going on, and it will be much quicker for you too! :raised_hands:

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Oh? I’ve asked for it before and the COp seemed perfectly willing and it enabled me to explain to them what happened! LOL

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COps find it much easier to diagnose issues when you give them a clear description of what is going on

Agreed, that’s not what I meant - I meant to say that he should explain the issue to COps but also ask what the error code was just for the sake of curiosity (so he can post it here for us, as I’m quite curious why that declined).

For the last 3 weeks I’ve tried to pay at the pump, only for my card to be declined - I then go into the store and use that same card to pay on the chip and pin machine.

I get the same condescending tone and look from the women behind the counter, like y’know… Monzo? Probably wouldn’t happen if you were with a real bank

Has anyone else experienced this?

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Hey @thisistomok ,

I’ve moved your post here as it follows a similar topic.
Latest update from Monzo regarding this is here:

EDIT: TO confirm I’ve never had this issue.

Never ever had my Monzo card decline at Tesco Pay at Pump. I do believe you need at least £99 in the account for the approval to go through

Looks there are some issues between Tesco and Monzo.
Had declines only at Tesco. Once at PayAtPump and few times at self checkout

It still happens at Tesco, and CostCo, and from what i can tell from talking to COP’s there needs to over £100 in the account.

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I believe the petrol stations are no longer allowed to put a hold on the card for that amount of money.

I believe it’s Monzo that require that money in the account, not the Petrol stations.

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As @Feathers says the petrol station only hold £1 however you can spend up to £99 so I believe Monzo don’t approve it if you have less than £99 in available balance

Blockquote
“We want to make sure that you’re always able to use your card, so we may decline pay-at-pump transactions if there isn’t enough money in your account to cover the potential cost.”
Blockquote

I don’t understand this. Is each transaction reviewed by a human being with discretion?

“May” decline? Under what circumstances? If there isn’t enough money to cover potential cost? What is the potential cost if the auth hold is £1? Is it fixed in law or does the merchant just take their chances when they request a different amount to the auth hold? Surely the bank can still decline it.

I have had success on £1 auth hold with much much less than £99 balance and on other occasions declined. Is it random? If not, what are the rules? If it is random, on what rule basis?

The £1 was pre-auth both visa and MasterCard changed the rules last year and started implementing it this year

So in some cases you need £99 in your account, I would assume that as Monzo take the full balance the next day an generally know incoming payments that would give you over £99 for the next day it would decline

I really don’t understand any of this.

I am told by Monzo support that at petrol pumps the auth hold request includes an absolute amount (normally £1 in my experience) AND a maximum potential amount.

They say they every station even with the same business can have a different maximum and this can be anything and your cannot know what it is.

For example I have £17 in my account. One place I have auth hold request for £1 successful, I put £10 fuel in, still not taken. Clearly the maximum figure was oddly something like £16, Same day later same business £1 auth hold £16 in account, declined.

I’m beginning to think the real truth is noone really knows who or what is declining and why and what the rules are. Every time I try to get clarity it becomes more confused and contradictory.

The best thing is to believe noone knows, just don’t use pay at pump if possible.