Hi Val
Re the Carrefour scam: it doesn't just happen with fuel Val, we bought a set of garden furniture from Bricomarche a couple of years ago, the amount for the furniture was stopped plus the amount for the furniture again! We've had it happen many times when using an english card, from supermarket shopping, fuel etc. When i queried the bank which i've done several times now it turns out that Visa (the name to watch!) deduct the money from your card at the time but then if the exchange rate alters between the time of the transaction and the time that the visa computer deals with it they take it as being 2 separate transactions so your money sits in limbo (or more likely somewhere earning visa that bit of extra interest) until the penny drops, can take up to 15 days but is usually about a week. Two lots of fuel, a bit of shopping and some garden furniture we were short of about £500 for a little over a week, I was going to contact Watchdog in the UK about it, surely it can't be legal... never had the time to take it up though. The girl i spoke to at the bank had the same happen to her on a long distance holiday, a few transactions and all the funds on her card were spoken for by visa for the 2 weeks of her stay!! The new robber barons.... Mastercard do not appear to pursue the same policy. We now use a top up currency card for those occasions, Caxton FX offer a good one.
Best Laura
Val says - all a bit of an eye opener all of this
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