Pay-at-pump + Amex - says it's accepted but never is?

[growse]

I'm wondering if anyone else has had this experience:

Over the last few weeks, I've tried to buy petrol from a pay-at-pump station using an Amex card. Despite trying all combinations of 3 different Amex cards at Tesco, Esso and Asda, no amex card has ever been accepted by the pump, despite the pump clearly advertising that it accepts amex. The message usually is something along the lines of "card not accepted". My Visa debit then works fine.

Does anyone know what's going on here? It can't be a specific card that's broken, and it also can't be just a specific chain. It's also never been a problem when paying in the kiosk, so there's something funny going on when it comes to Amex chip+pin cards and pay at pump petrol stations.

 

[growse]

I might just shout at amex and see what they say. At the end is the day, its their cards thdt aren't working.

 

[growse]

I used to do third line support for the company that manufactures ASDA's pay at the pump machines. There certainly was an issue with AMEX cards but I can't remember what it was. I'm pretty sure there was an old type of card which didn't work and were gradually being phased out as customers card expired. It would probably be worth asking AMEX to send you a new card, chances are you would find the new one would work.

If you were really bothered you could go to ASDA and pester someone until they phoned HTEC who would be able to tell them why the card was turned down.

Interesting stuff - All the cards are older than 6 months, is it worth getting new ones?