english credit cards

Does anyone know why the mighty english credit cards are not used by the french petrol stations? I can take money out of cash machines, but at cite d%26#39;europe there was a seperate set of pumps for english credit cards, luckily close as well! Eventually we got some petrol near eastenders booze store, buit had to send the wife in with her passport before filling up- just like dover then!?! The message is don%26#39;t run empty late at night /weekends!

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Most petrol stations here after 2200 will not allow you to draw fuel unless you go in to the kiosk first (with cash/credit card). As to why yours didn%26#39;t work at the Cité d%26#39;Europe was it down to the chip and pin, as all our cards here have this now for 10+ years and no longer use the magnetic strip.

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I had the same problem in Normandy a couple of years ago. None of the petrol pumps would accept non French credit cards and as it was a Sunday there was nobody around to help. I contacted Visa about this and they explained that this was a known problem and was down to the French banks who would not support non French credit card transactions. At the time Visa were in negotiation with the banks because this is clearly not in the spirit of the Visa brand i.e. a Visa card is a Visa card is a Visa card – there is no differentiation between countries. At the time a German couple were having the same problem – their card wasn’t accepted either.

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I had this problem with French machines not accepting my British debit card until a few months ago (luckily I also have a French card). But since my Lloyds issued me with a Chip %26amp; Pin it seems to be acceptable in any machine here.

If you don%26#39;t have a Chip %26amp; Pin and the petrol station is manned, you can usually just tell them to swipe the card (you may have to show them - tell them %26quot;bande magnetique%26quot;) then sign the receipt.

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This is nothing to do with British Cards and all to do with the Chip and Pin. Last year when we were in France our cards were the traditional type and we had to produce either our passports or our driving licences (picture ID) everywhere we used the cards.

This year, our cards had been upgraded to Chip and Pin and we had no problems.