I’ve had the same issue in France and Switzerland, with both terminals that require a PIN and ones that don’t; unable to pay for petrol at the pump, tolls at automated booths or food using self service kiosks.
Would be great if we could pre-authorise these types of payments beforehand in the app.
Could this be related to ‘location security’ (company registration is not the same as payer location)
Just ahad a long conversation with Revolut this weekend as we have been to some non attended tolls on French motorways and according to Revolut they are not supported but our card was accepted and then we have been to some Portuguese tolls WITH attendants and the card was refused. Revolut can not explain, it confuses them, no wonder it confuses us!
Hi @Ratamon, yes, you described the situation exactly how I understand it. But it seems to me that some issuers manage to get around of some of the limitations. N26’s standard account is basically a prepaid account (when you don’t apply for an overdraft) and their Debit MasterCard works in some circumstances when the Revolut card won’t. On board restaurants in trains for example. How does MasterCard differentiate between prepaid and debit cards? Is it that debit cards are usually attached to more versatile current accounts with more thorough credit checks?
What frustrates me is that Revolut themselves can’t give definitive answers as to what they can and can’t do/ If I knew I could prepare for it, but it is annoying and embarrassing having your Revolut card rejected, especially when there is an attendant present.
@markeee, I know, but Revolut is just one part of the equation. These technical details are tricky, POS terminals are configured in different ways. I once was trying to buy train tickets in France, and about 5 different cards from me and friends didn’t work. One bank debit card finally did. No one knows why. I would not rely on one single card while traveling. It is always good to carry two different cards, preferably from two different schemes.
@markeee if the POS is offline, how do you think pressing any button on your phone would change the way the POS reads the card?
it wont ever get any info regarding that, nor does your card talk to your phone.
Surely if the POS is offline it would not get authenticated in the first place? Just as if you are in a shop and they tell you the line is slow we need to wait?
Not sure if this will help but just pitching in to vote to raise this issue again… My card was denied yesterday at a French petrol station and now seeing that French motorway tolls may also not be supported - this would be a major source of expenses when travelling on holiday. Hope something can be done about this. Otherwise what is the alternative solution? Cash withdrawals well in advance?
Trouble is if they are a major expense to you then you won’t have enough cash to make this viable without incurring the 2% charge, even Premium Revolut users can only withdraw £400 worth per month without charges.
As for us fuel and tolls are a big part of the costs of the trip and so Revolut not working on this encourage us to use alternative solutions hence pushing us away from Revolut. Presumably as the Internet Of Things revolution pushes forward, more and more things will become automated and hence face this same situation.
Well, I’m happy to say that in my recent trip across France the Revolut card was accepted without problems at péage stations (road toll booths) like any other credit card.
Sadly it still didn’t work at non-attended petrol stations nor at motorway toll booths in Spain
Could someone from Revolut please chirp in on this one to tell us if you have updated your plans yet as to overcome this problem for your users?
I still think a two factor solution would work; arrive at unattended service, open Revolut app, press button to advise you will shortly use a non-attended service, Revolut pre-authorises card for the next 5 minutes for non-attended use, transaction proceeds perfectly, customer happy, Revolut card is then restricted from further non-attended transactions, Revolut happy as fraud risk once more prevented.
Any reason why this could not easily be implemented?
I drive down to France a lot, as far as I know it depends on the toll operator.
I spend approx 70 euro each way from Calais to the alps… the only two tolls that dont work, are the one at Geneva around 1.90EUR and the one at junction 18 of the A40 (Morzine etc) this is 2EUR. All of the others I have come across work (automated).
As for fuel stations, its only the automated ones which don’t work, manned ones do.
Hi Windy
Agreed re fuel stations, it is the automated ones that I would like Revolut to add a 2 factor authorisation for so we can use them.
As for tolls, most of the ones we tried that were unmanned wouldn’t work and Revolut confirmed that. Again it would be great if we could use them.
Over to you Revolut.
Issue with fuel stations and toll operators is that they’re offline transactions.
Nothing to do with 2-factor or security.
Surely they can’t be “offline” with no ability to know if the card is valid, not stolen, got credit on it etc or other wise any of the toll booths or fuel stations would be at huge risk of targeted fraud. These are simply transactions without an attendant aren’t they and as such Revolut decide they are too risky. So if a second factor of authentication was used then surely that would be able to satisfy Revolut that it was the card holder present and therefore authorise it?
It’s a financial system thing, rather than a Revolut-specific thing.
Revolut’s current debit cards (Regardless of whether it’s PaySafe or Wirecard.) are pre-paid. Therefore the limitation of all pre-paid debit cards is that they can’t be used with offline transactions.
Some other ‘neobanks’ that currently use pre-paid Mastercards also have this limitation.
Thank you Capital, your input is much appreciated. But I still don’t understand how a “credit” card can be validated and a “pre-paid” card can’t be. the “pre-paid” is still Mastercard. Surely these pumps don’t wildly accept credit cards without checking they are blocked or insufficiewnt funds otherwise they would be rife for fraud.
As I understand it, Revolut choose not to allow “non present” transactions because of the increased risk of fraud. All I ask is that if we pre-authorise a transaction for say 10 minutes, can we then use our Revolut card?
I must say again, that it is a financial system thing, rather than a Revolut-specific thing.
Revolut has not decided to forbid offline transactions. It is the retailers who have.
Every single retail financial institution that issues pre-paid debit cards (From Revolut, to Monese, to Tide, …) will have this limitation.
This limitation is not imposed by Revolut, but inherent in the financial system itself.
It has nothing to do with Revolut pre-authorising or ‘not trusting you’ or preventing offline transactions due to the increased risk of fraud.
It has to do with the providers themselves (The toll booths, the petrol pumps, the in-flight stores on aeroplanes, …) deciding to reject debit cards.
TfL (if I recall correctly.) uses an offline transactions system but they accept pre-paid debit cards. The onus on accepting pre-paid debit cards is on them, and they have decided to accept pre-paid debit cards. It is not the retail financial institutions who can force them to accept it.
The reason why ‘online’ (as in, connected to the payments network, and not ‘online’ as in e-commerce.) transactions are more ‘trusted’/secure than offline transactions is because the payments terminal directly connects to the payments network and can validate the validity of the debit card, and ensure that the card has enough money.
Certain retailers have decided to accept offline transactions, for reasons of cost-cutting (Might not have been feasible to install an ‘online’ link due to low foot traffic.) or remoteness (Bandwidth might’ve been expensive back then.).
Due to the pre-paid nature of debit cards, these debit cards are normally self-standing. Historically, there has been a light-touch regulatory approach where people can buy and load money on pre-paid debit cards without submitting too much information.
Therefore, unlike a ‘full’ debit card or a credit card, where a financial institution has your contact details and documents verifying your identity (as part of the KYC/IDV process.), users of pre-paid debit cards have historically been relatively anonymous.
The risk of fraud arises where someone does a transaction with an ‘offline’ terminal but it turns out that the card has an insufficient balance. Due to the payments terminal being offline, it will only connect to the payments network and verify at certain intervals.
If the pre-paid card has insufficient balance, they would be unable to follow up on the missing amount with the bank.
The limitations of a pre-paid debit card are clear, and it is an annoyance to a users who need to conduct transactions with offline terminals whilst holidaying.
2 solutions:
-1) Obtain a Mastercard Principal Membership Licence: As an issuer, Revolut will be able to issue full debit cards.
-2) Obtain a UK banking licence: As a fully-authorised UK bank (as opposed to an eMoney institution.), they’ll be able to issue their own debit cards.
Given how the UK banking licence appears to be at the exploratory stage, #1 appears to be the closest solution (in terms of time.).
Thank you Capital for all that information.
If that is the case it explains it a lot more. Let’s hope something can be done.
