Fuel card warning!

[RickW]

Don't be as daft as me on this one

I was given a £500 fuel card as part of the deal on my new Fabia in March, 2016.

I ran it down to £25 this year and kept it in my glove box for emergencies (ie leaving wallet at home etc.).

I didn't realise (silly me) that the thing was only valid for one year and expired at the end of March 2017,meaning I've now lost the £25 which apparently goes back to Skoda.

If you have a  free fuel card,check it out before it's too late.

Lesson learned.

[Tokenminds]

1 hour ago, RickW said:

Don't be as daft as me on this one

I was given a £500 fuel card as part of the deal on my new Fabia in March, 2016.

I ran it down to £25 this year and kept it in my glove box for emergencies (ie leaving wallet at home etc.).

I didn't realise (silly me) that the thing was only valid for one year and expired at the end of March 2017,meaning I've now lost the £25 which apparently goes back to Skoda.

If you have a  free fuel card,check it out before it's too late.

Lesson learned.

I've had mine for about a month and I think it's got about £40 left on it

[RickW]

Big spender

[malcster]

With our lass it lasted about a week 

 

[Damo]

Because you could use it for anything not just fuel, mine saw about 6 weeks before it was empty 

[RickW]

I'm going to write a jolly nice simply clever letter to Skoda as a last ditch attempt to get my £25 back in spite of terms and conditions.

 

Worth a punt

[Scuffer]

16 hours ago, RickW said:

I'm going to write a jolly nice simply clever letter to Skoda as a last ditch attempt to get my £25 back in spite of terms and conditions.

 

Worth a punt

I wouldn't be sure so sure it goes back to Skoda.

 

R. Raphael and Sons who issued these get to keep the balances as far as I'm aware. If you go into Tesco (other retailers available) and see the Visa pre-paid gift cards  those are issued by the same company and after 12 months they keep the money too. That's where they (the card issuer) make the money, they keep whatever isn't spent rather than having to give the money to the retailer. 

 

When I applied for mine in March this year I was told the issuer was changing but the terms and conditions remain the same, there's also a dormancy fee of £2/£2.50 a month if the card isn't used, so far I haven't let the missus know that I've received it and it's mainly used for petrol (though I've been eyeing up some niche Oakley sunglasses for the holidays!). 

[rum4mo]

Quote:-  "though I've been eyeing up some niche Oakley sunglasses for the holidays!"   I have 3 pairs of Frogskins, well maybe a leg broke on one pair so I just bought a pair for each car! 

[RickW]

13 hours ago, Scuffer said:

I wouldn't be sure so sure it goes back to Skoda.

 

R. Raphael and Sons who issued these get to keep the balances as far as I'm aware. If you go into Tesco (other retailers available) and see the Visa pre-paid gift cards  those are issued by the same company and after 12 months they keep the money too. That's where they (the card issuer) make the money, they keep whatever isn't spent rather than having to give the money to the retailer. 

 

When I applied for mine in March this year I was told the issuer was changing but the terms and conditions remain the same, there's also a dormancy fee of £2/£2.50 a month if the card isn't used, so far I haven't let the missus know that I've received it and it's mainly used for petrol (though I've been eyeing up some niche Oakley sunglasses for the holidays!). 

 

The R. Raphael and Sons customer service operator told me the money went back to Skoda,so who's right?

[Tokenminds]

10 hours ago, rum4mo said:

Quote:-  "though I've been eyeing up some niche Oakley sunglasses for the holidays!"   I have 3 pairs of Frogskins, well maybe a leg broke on one pair so I just bought a pair for each car! 

I was glad that the screen in the car isn't blanked out by polarising lenses - as when I previously used to use my mobile as a sat-nav the glasses would block the screen.

[rum4mo]

The lenses on all my Oakley Frogskins are iridium etc coated to suit driving, but in the late 2009 Ibiza, I seem to have my last pair of polarising sunglasses, which makes reading what is on the radio display a bit tricky, I seem to remember on my old 2000 VW Passat, polarised sunglasses were okay as both the radio and the air con displays could be read when my head was "right way up", with my wife's old 2002 Polo, I had to rotate my head to read the radio - both radios were VW Gamma, but one was made in Frogland and the other in ??? - it was the Frogland made one that caused problems, as you might expect!

[RickW]

On 2017-5-25 at 23:24, RickW said:

 

The R. Raphael and Sons customer service operator told me the money went back to Skoda,so who's right?

I obviously need to investigate further!

[Scuffer]

1 hour ago, RickW said:

I obviously need to investigate further!

 

The Fuel Card, as you know, isn't really a fuel card. It's a simple pre-paid Mastercard in this case. Like all pre-paid debit cards the money loaded on the card is then subject to the issuers T&C's. For example you can't spend it on gambling websites or withdraw it all for cash, as such when the card issuer says any remaining value is lost after 12 months that is because that's their profit.

 

Skoda paid the issuer £500 to load up £500 on the card, it is unlikely there would be a transaction/loading fee - the issuer only makes money if there is any left at the end of 12 months.

 

R Raphael and Sons used to issue £25 3V pre-paid Visa cards which a certain Avios/Airmiles forum got wind of as you could earn a fortune in miles by buying them to use for paying tax bills/clearing household utility bills etc with as they had no activation fee. As a result R Raphael and Sons pulled the cards as they were producing thousands of them, selling them to retailers and all the cards were being emptied within days. I myself made in the region of 50,000 airmiles via Clubcard by churning them and got all my money back.   

 

16 hours ago, Tokenminds said:

I was glad that the screen in the car isn't blanked out by polarising lenses - as when I previously used to use my mobile as a sat-nav the glasses would block the screen.

 

I lost my Oakley Radar photochromatics at some point over the last year, they just seem to have disappeared. So I've been looking at either Fuel Cell or Mainlinks as replacements. 

[RickW]

So I was told a porky,Skoda don't get the money back.

[rum4mo]

I've had worse that this, I got a Victoria Wines voucher a many Christmases ago, but did not spend it very quickly, then Victoria Wines went t**'s up - gift voucher worthless, oh bother!

 

Still, on the bright side, my local Victoria Wine, like many others, were then run by either exVW staff independently or by others, and my one is run by an exbutcher - and he makes "award winning pies", and sells a selection of a local cheesemonger's cheeses, so we can get well priced well selected wines, fine cheeses and excellent pies - win, win, win!