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It's not just the Brits that have hassles with their cards, it's everyone that's not French (or who hasn't a French card). Most notable locally are the Spanish who expect a station saying 24/7 to be able to take their cards (the Spanish automated petrol stations seem to take all cards).

 

Arnold

 

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[quote user="mascamps.com"]

As far as I know the automated stations only take Carte Bleue (ie French Visa/Mastercards: not even French Visa Electron/Maestro as far as I know)

[/quote]

I can assure you that a Eurocard/Mastercard debit card issued by a French bank (mine is from CA) works fine at all filling stations. To be fair, mine also has a CB logo on it as well as the Mastercard logo.

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But how come they don't have the same problem with the new French EMV standard cards? I thought that the EMV standard was a worldwide standard which should (probably does everywhere outside of France) mean that all EMV cards are processed in the same way. After all, you seem to be able to use chip & pin everywhere else in France except the petrol stations (and in some older car park machines [the new ones do take UK cards]) and indeed anywhere else in the world that has implemented chip & pin.

And, why do they bother making the machines display instructions in English, Spanish, German and French when it only accepts French cards?

 

Arnold

 

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[quote user="Anton Redman"]It is not the card reading software that is the problem,. The bank of petrol pumps dials up for authorisation of the card after you have input the pin number. Nobody has agreed the protocals for aiuthorising UK cardsn France .  [/quote]

 

If this is the case, it is only at automated petrol stations.   I often use my UK card in chip and pin machines at French supermarkets and other retail outlets, with no problem at all.

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The autoroutes stopped taking Amex a few months ago. On all the signs I've seen around France, there's a big X over the Amex logo on the signs listing cards accepted.

They definitely aren't accepted regardless of what the website may say: I've tried mine and it no longer works.

 

Arnold

 

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I am sure that the reason that foreign cards work sometimes (supermarket check outs or manned pumps) and not others (automated pumps) is due to the authorisation issues as has been stated above.

Friends of ours from the UK use their chip and pin in the supermarket.  The card is verified by the pin, but they still have to sign a chit to authorise the paymant.  With a french chip and pin, once the number is verfied that's it as far as the user is concerned (authorisation is automatic).

 

Something else I noted recently is that at some of the petrol pumps the authorisation is to a set value.  So when the machine confirms you can fill up it also says you are allowed to fill up to so many euros worth of the fuel you have selected - not a problem since the limit is way over the size of my tank, but I had never seen this before.

 

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The reason why some shop terminals ask for your PIN and others don't is because not all terminals have been updated in France. Those with the old software can't read the UK chip so treat it as a magnetic stripe card so you need to sign as usual. If the software has been updated, your card works in France as it should in the UK ie PIN only, though it does take a little longer to authorise a non-French card.

In Spain (and most/all other European countries) you enter the PIN and sign the slip too.

That leaves the problem of HSBC issued cards (which includes those branded Capital One) which aren't accepted at all at some supermarkets (Shoppi and Champion that I know of, there may be others). They swipe it, it says it's a PIN card, they insert it and it says the chip is dead.

Almost all automated petrol pumps around the world do an "authorisation" on your card to check that it's valid. The pumps in the UK usually do it for £1, those in France do it for around 100€ (it varies depending on the owner of the petrol station). Snag is that this authorisation usually isn't cancelled so it reduces the limit that you have available. Same thing applies to hotels: I'd a friend who came unstuck with that when he checked into a hotel for a week, checked out the next day and couldn't check into another hotel because his entire balance was blocked by the authorisation that the original hotel had run through and not cancelled.

 

Arnold

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That's fantastic news. One hopes that it is the beginning of the rollout of acceptance of non-French cards.

On a related note, I've noticed that some of the pay stations in car parks now accept UK cards.

Just yesterday, we saw yet another brit in search of petrol for his hire car that he'd just picked up with next to no petrol as presumably it was a fellow brit who'd just dropped it off having failed to find any useable petrol stations on a Sunday.

 

Arnold

 

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  • 2 months later...
Is it possible for a non-French citizen or resident (i.e. me) to open a French bank account or get a French debit or credit card?  I've done three trips to France on my bike since last July and the hassle with petrol stations on Sundays and nights spoilt a lot of my enjoyment.  Would be so handy to have a French card.  Any advice gratefully accepted.  Thanks.

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It is. The easiest option is www.britline.com which is an English speaking phone/internet banking branch of Credit Agricole.

However, you need to fork out about 40€ per year for the convenience of their cheapest card which will work everywhere (ie a Mastercard; I understand that even French Visa Electron & Maestro cards won't work in the petrol stations).

But, that shouldn't be necessary as the petrol stations are gradually being upgraded to accept international cards. We had some guests staying who had no problems in the Loire for instance. In the meantime, you can get petrol on the motorways as they're open on Sundays and in some small petrol stations attached to the likes of bars.

 

Arnold

 

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I was surprised to find that my French CA debit card did not work on the autoroute but my Nationwide credit card did. The latter does not usually work in petrol stations and has to be "swiped". However last time we filled up at Geant Angouleme (I think it was there) the chip worked and I keyed in the code - I was surprised to say the least.

There are still some shops where it has to be swiped - GEMO in Cognac for example. There are still quite a few shop assistants who always try to swipe an English card and don't realise that the chip is OK now.

 

 

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I don't think we can expect a rollout of acceptance of non-French cards.  There will be some changes to fuel sites where there is a clear demand, eg near to ferry ports or in some tourist areas that are popular with UK visitors, but I don't quite see the rest of rural France making the change just to accommodate the British. 
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The only French debit cards that won't work in the autoroutes are Maestro and Visa Electron ones; foreign versions of those aren't accepted in tollbooths (or some car parks) either. It's basically down to the way that these cards are processed - essentially you can't do a "customer not present" transaction on them and as you'll know from the speed of processing at tollbooths, clearly the transaction isn't processed while you're there.

Rural France will have to roll out acceptance whether they want to or not as all new French cards are EMV standard and therefore the French will gradually find that they can't use their own petrol stations if the update of the software isn't rolled out. One of our guests said that they could already use the automated stations with a UK card in the Loire. It isn't just the British cards either as the EMV (ie chip & pin) cards are being rolled out over most of Europe, even including France!

The problem at the moment is that the banks are gradually updating the software over a period of a year or two. Most shops locally used chip & pin last year but LIDL only took out pin yesterday for the first time. It's also far from obvious to the shop assistants what way they need to process the cards. At least I can look at a card, recognise it as a British one and if the start date is 2004 or later then I know it's probably a chip & pin card and insert it in out TPE rather than swiping it. On the other hand there are some European countries which have chips on their cards but aren't chip & pin (yet).

 

Arnold

 

 

 

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And there are some countries where chips are still what we Brits would call crisps.

 

Germany seems to be shunning chip and pin - everything is still swipe - but many cards have a photo of the owner on the rear as protection - only problem is my photo is now 8 years old and a few grey hairs have developed in the mean time

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I wonder about the effectiveness of the photocards over time. As you say, people get older but there doesn't seem to be a mechanism in place to ask you for a new photo before they renew your card.

I gather that they're very effective in reducing fraud though. When they were (briefly) introduced in the UK by a couple of banks, the fraud on those cards dropped 90%.

 

Arnold

 

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Paul,

Don't forget that, when all else fails and you're stuck in some god-forsaken deserted petrol station at one in the morning kicking a pump that refuses your English card, out of the darkness will come a petite blonde local angel on her somewhat noisy moped also looking to tank up. She WILL have a French card, will be delighted to accept your hastily profferred french cash, will insist on helping you fill up, and will then categorically refuse any gesture of thanks (such as a contribution to her own petrol) you may suggest. After all, to her it will be much the same as asking for cash-back while buying something with a card at the supermarket.

As I have a nasty and as yet uncontrolled urge to run the car as near to empty as possible (someone once convinced my frugal mind that the lighter a car is, the more mpg it attains), I have been in such a position three times in as many months. I have yet to be disappointed by the next driver who turns up. Even a good command of French is not essential when gestures will suffice.

As well as getting you out of a hole, it will restore your faith in humanity and in the "entente cordiale". Just be a bit wary if it's a coachful of football fans the night that France got knocked out of the World Cup...

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We have just returned from France and had a pretty scary experience with filling stations, so caution is recommended.

We drove up to Calais using the A28 for much of the journey.  There are very few service areas on that route with filling stations.  We pulled off at several villages and these took only French cards.  In the end we got to a toll area with a single pump, which was the only fuel outlet signposted from the A28.  Again, it would only take French cards and by that time we were completely out of fuel. 

My first comment is, therefore, be careful.  Always fill up, even if you still have some fuel left.  It is better than the worry that we had.

Secondly, however, at said pump, we pressed the 'Help' button, spoke to a really helpful chap, who sent 'assistance' at no charge to us.  They used their card to put fuel into our tank and we just gave them the equivalent in cash (plus a tip because they were so nice).  I am sure in England, they would have brought a can of fuel, overcharged for it and charged £50 for the call out. 

So, a scary experience turned out to be a great experience in meeting lovely and helpful French people.

Anyway, my caution on the pumps and cards is a serious one.

Happy travelling folks.

 

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If you are getting low on petrol after closing hours (ie between about 7pm and 8am or anytime on Sunday), the only dependable way to get it if you don't have a French card, is to go onto a motorway and use one of the service stations. The motorway service areas are always manned (usually 24 hours, 7 days) and therefore take foreign cards. One nuisance of these places is that they generally require you to prepay for the fuel after about 10pm. Note that they generally only take Mastercard, Visa and the debits card equivalents ie Maestro/Switch and Visa Electron; they rarely take American Express or Diners Club.

This doesn't apply to "service areas" signposted from normal roads. However, if you're quite a way from a motorway, you MIGHT  find a manned station (max hours around 8am to 10pm) IN a village. I stress "in" because those just off a main road will almost certainly be automated after 7pm, what you're looking for is a small local station and they're usually right inside the village. I'll also stress that this isn't a dependable option: as an indication of how undependable this is, there is only one such station on the D117 between Perpignan and Foix, a distance of around 200 miles.

 

Arnold

 

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