A driver says she has been left with no money after £99 was blocked out of her account when she filled up her car with petrol at Asda.
Iona told Mirror Money how £129.02 was pending in her account - despite only buying £30.02 of petrol - thanks to pre-authorisation checks that are used at supermarket fuel forecourts.
The idea of the pre-authorisation check is that it blocks out money from your account - £99 at Asda, but at other supermarkets it is £120 - so the store knows you can afford to pay for your fuel.
The remaining funds should then get released once you have finishing filling up your car.
Being so early in the morning, the petrol station was unmanned and Iona had no choice but to use the pay-at-the-pump option, rather than pay in the kiosk, where the check doesn't apply.
She said: "I went to top buy my car because I knew I wasn't going to have enough fuel to get me home this evening and I had read that Tesco was doing this but I didn't think Asda was.
"After I filled up with £30.02 of petrol and got back into my car, I got some alerts from my bank about the payments and it completely threw me off I couldn't believe it."
Iona said she had been forced to make some big unexpected payments to her car that month which meant her cash was dwindling.
She also had some debts that her remaining cash was to go towards which she wouldn't be able to pay until she got the money back.
She said: "If I miss these payments, I get charged extra on my credit card and this will massively set me back."
As of writing, Iona has still not received her money back.
What are the pay-at-the-pump rules and why have they changed?
Before the change in early 2022, you did always have to pay a pre-authorisation or holding fee when you filled up at a pay-at-the-pump petrol station, this is why you would enter your PIN before you pump and the fee was £1.
This was taken by your card issuer to make sure that your card was valid, and then the payment was returned to you between one to three days later.
The rules changed early last year when this "holding" fee increased to £99, and more recently this fee increased further up to £120.
The changes were made by credit card companies Visa and Mastercard to ensure that customers had sufficient funds in their accounts to cover the cost of their fuel.
Once you’ve filled up, the actual cost of your fuel is deducted from your account and the balance of the holding fee is released back to you.
The card companies say that the new rules don't stop people from filling up if they haven't got £120 in their account.
If this is the case, your card provider should inform the supermarket what funds are available and you should be allowed to fill up to that particular amount.
Which supermarkets have the "holding" charge?
In 2021 Tesco began trialling a £99 “available funds” fee and in February 2022, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons all said the £99 charge was being rolled out across their filling stations.
The fee is only applied to pay-at-pump transactions and drivers can avoid paying it by using their card at the filling station kiosk.
As of writing, Tesco has upped the fee to £120 whilst Sainsbury's and Morrisons have increased it to £100.
How long does it take for your money to come back?
According to both Visa and Mastercard, the money should be returned to you completely within a few minutes.
However, some drivers have reported the money taking up to 48 hours to return to them.
Card issuers and retailers insist the money never leaves your account but it is ring-fenced, which means it can’t be spent until the funds are released, which has caused issues for some drivers.
On Twitter user faced this problem waiting more than 24 hours before her money was released from the hold.
Yvonne tweeted Asda saying: "When the kiosk is closed at #runcorn petrol station and you have to use the pay at the pump option! Absolutely cr*p that you ‘hold’ £99 from my bank balance when I’ve only put £25 in my car! 24 hours later and you are still 'holding' my money!"
Another user Colin asked Asda: "Why are you still holding the £99 holding fee for petrol the £40 worth of petrol has left my account a day ago but you’re still holding £99. I will not be using your pay at pumps in future."
It isn't just Asda however, others have reported issues across multiple supermarkets.
Jacqueline tweeted: "I put my card into a pay at the pump for petrol at Morrisons and it took £ 120 but didn’t release any fuel.
"I then had to pay at the kiosk for the £50 petrol I actually had. So £170 taken in all. It took about a week to get the £120 refunded."
Another driver Joseph said: "Had an issue at a forecourt where the payment didn't go through, yet the funds were held.
"So I had to pay again. The held funds took seven days to become un-held. £85 in the ether for a week."
When approached for comment by the Daily Mirror, Asda declined to comment as it is a system being rolled out across all retailers by Visa and Mastercard.
