buying petrol

I remember in dodgy parts of Boston you had to pay cash first....our asda has a kiosk....

doubt it ...

Like Mattapan

The banking system - in terms of the customer facing part- seems less ‘integrated’ in the US. Ours is dominated by a few big names - although several new contenders are available, plus the former Building Societies. In the US, they still seem to have smaller, almost local, banks. True, they may have links to the larger ones, but they are more like how our small banks used to be. On one trip, we had a problem with getting some dollars. We were staying with a friend who banked with one of the ‘small’ banks. I went in with him, they fixed the problem instantly ( the card we had was damaged), advanced some dollars and arranged a new card to be delivered etc. No only was the exchange rate very good, they made no charge, contacted me to check the card arrived and to see if I needed another advance etc. Even with a ‘special’ account with my UK bank, I would be surprised if they did that other than for me or my wife.

what amazed me were the massive banking halls we no longer have...the post offices were big as well.....

No they did not with cards.

Irrelevant to the fact that they were not behind the times with those and they are MUCH more secure than contactless cards.

There's a dot shortage because of Brexit.

Bill

So why do they not allow you to decide how much you are going to spend and check for that amount? It saves the infuriating situation when you try your damned hardest to stop at say £20 but invariably go over by one or two pence.

Some pumps (Tesco for certain) do allow you to select how much fuel to put in and automatically cut off at that point.

I normally just fill the tank to the top, so I don't know in advance how much I am going to put in (although I will have some idea).

Or a pony with a phony plate

They've got to pay off that debt somehow Jim :-)

but asda petrol prices are generally the cheapest about....anyway it is now cleared in my account....five days

V10XCS

nah I blame Nicola .............................

Couldn't this principle be applied to many other purchases, ie regardless of what the actual cost of the purchase is likely to be, we're actually going to charge you a lot more, and then keep your money for an indeterminate time until we get around to refunding the difference?

AIUI, electricity companies are doing something similar. They are getting customers to increase their standing orders or direct debit authorisations to an amount that greatly exceeds what the actual charge will be, and as a result the customers are ending up their accounts being considerably (and unnecessarily) in credit.

Ofgem have finally got around to proposing all licensees should do the same. But why so late is yet another "why were you asleep at the wheel?" question for what I hope (against expectations) will be an inquiry that stuffs the reputations of whoever in Ofgem (or elsehwere) decided to maintain the "light touch" entry and monitopring regime when it was apparent in 2019 that new entrants were offering unsustainably low tariffs, and their failures costing consumers £m100s.

Where I'm staying at the moment I filled up yesterday with petrol @

Once in the USA when trying to buy petrol with a card I was requested to enter a numerical post code which of course I don't have.

It is quite normal for suppliers such as hotels and car hire companies to take out authorisation for the amount you are likely to spend when you arrive. The amount comes off your credit limit. I once had to get a credit limit increased because of this problem when I made a business trip to the USA.

In my experience with hotels only a nominal amount is pre-charged (5p)