kelly58 Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 I have just arrived back from a few days in Normandy I tried to pay for parking @ le-Portel 3e but the machine will not take UK credit / Debit cards or cash , but a nice French motorhomer paid on his card and I gave him cash then @ Honfluer again the machine will not take UK cards only cash we spent Friday night near the Marina in Deauville and it was absoluteley packed out upon leaving Sat am I was stopped by a suspicious looking female who demanded cash for overnight parking although we did not see any sign regarding overnight payment for parking ,so I refused to pay ignoring her request for money and making out I could not speak French she then gave up and dissapeared to from where she had come from. Other than that the weather was fantastic open clear sky's and really hot at times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sshortcircuit Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 Can I ask which card you used. In the past I have used Nationwide Debit card with no problems and had hoped to use again this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly58 Posted April 12, 2011 Author Share Posted April 12, 2011 sshortcircuit - 2011-04-11 8:45 PM Can I ask which card you used. In the past I have used Nationwide Debit card with no problems and had hoped to use again this year. We only have Nationwide Cards now attracting a 2% surcharge on purchases outside the UK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly58 Posted April 12, 2011 Author Share Posted April 12, 2011 sshortcircuit - 2011-04-11 8:45 PM Can I ask which card you used. In the past I have used Nationwide Debit card with no problems and had hoped to use again this year. We only have Nationwide Cards now attracting a 2% surcharge on purchases outside the UK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry1956 Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 hi, odd, a few weeks back we saw the same thing, re a man looking around the site at numberplates. he knocked on the doors of any non french motorhomes ( ours is on french plates ) It was a non pay site and later i saw a number of french shouting at the fellow to clear off.He may of been upto the same trick. In germany there are a few places in which you get knocked up early by someone asking for money, but they always have a badge and tickets at the ready. it reminds me a bit of when i was a kid living in bristol. on nice days my dad would take us or to the zoo. outside the zoo was a parking area with two men in brown coats and money bags, signs ststing parking fees and a wooden cabin. the two men had been there over 10 years to my knowage when i read in the paper that they had both been done and given a year in side. It turned up that they had no right to be there, and that the zoo was under the idea that they worked for the council and the council that they worked for the zoo. in fact they just worked for themselves. with things becoming harder for people we had all better take extra care of these scams over the next few years. michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 sshortcircuit - 2011-04-11 8:45 PM Can I ask which card you used. In the past I have used Nationwide Debit card with no problems and had hoped to use again this year. Are you saying that, in the past, you've used a Nationwide debit-card successfully in French aire-de-services 'parking meters', or just saying that you've had no problems using that card elsewhere in France? It's just that I've a gut-feeling that French 'parking meters' might only accept credit-cards, not debit cards. (Whether they'll accept a UK credit-card is, as kelly58 discovered, another matter entirely!) I would have thought that, if there is a charge for overnight parking, there will be a sign somewhere on the parking area making that clear and indicating how payment needs to be made. I've just returned from France myself and at one 'aire' there was a sign saying there was a €5 charge for an overnight stay to be collected in the morning by "un agent". As nobody turned up we paid at the Mairie. Conversely, at an "aire naturelle" there was no indication of how to pay for staying there overnight, but we were directed to the Mairie where the charges were stated on a notice-board (€9). According to the campingcar-infos website there is no charge for overnighting on the quayside at Deauville (which undoubtedly explains why it gets crowded there!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly58 Posted April 12, 2011 Author Share Posted April 12, 2011 I tried 2 different debit cards and 1 credit card and neither of them were accepted but they were ok making other purchases including fuel at unmanned 24/24 filling stations. Last year we had no problems paying by card for overnight aires where payment was required including Honfluer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sshortcircuit Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 Derick "Are you saying that, in the past, you've used a Nationwide debit-card successfully in French aire-de-services 'parking meters', or just saying that you've had no problems using that card elsewhere in France? " As the OP was about machines on aires, my question related to that use and I have successfully used it at aires. Elsewhere I had no problems. I am aware of the Nationwide 2% charge, however it is still a good deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terryW Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 We paid for an Aire at Baccarat with a PO Mastercard last year, the machine appeared to work and delivered a ticket but we never received the transaction. However it was new and may not have been fully commissioned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 terry1956 - 2011-04-12 9:01 AM hi, odd, a few weeks back we saw the same thing, re a man looking around the site at numberplates. he knocked on the doors of any non french motorhomes ( ours is on french plates ) It was a non pay site and later i saw a number of french shouting at the fellow to clear off.He may of been upto the same trick. In germany there are a few places in which you get knocked up early by someone asking for money, but they always have a badge and tickets at the ready. it reminds me a bit of when i was a kid living in bristol. on nice days my dad would take us or to the zoo. outside the zoo was a parking area with two men in brown coats and money bags, signs ststing parking fees and a wooden cabin. the two men had been there over 10 years to my knowage when i read in the paper that they had both been done and given a year in side. It turned up that they had no right to be there, and that the zoo was under the idea that they worked for the council and the council that they worked for the zoo. in fact they just worked for themselves. with things becoming harder for people we had all better take extra care of these scams over the next few years. michael The "Bristol Zoo Parking Attendant" story is a fantastic story. I've heard it told many times, and it's always entertaining. But sadly, it's just a made-up story that has been circulating the internet & pubs for many years now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hopesy Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 BGD - 2011-04-12 4:29 PM terry1956 - 2011-04-12 9:01 AM hi, odd, a few weeks back we saw the same thing, re a man looking around the site at numberplates. he knocked on the doors of any non french motorhomes ( ours is on french plates ) It was a non pay site and later i saw a number of french shouting at the fellow to clear off.He may of been upto the same trick. In germany there are a few places in which you get knocked up early by someone asking for money, but they always have a badge and tickets at the ready. it reminds me a bit of when i was a kid living in bristol. on nice days my dad would take us or to the zoo. outside the zoo was a parking area with two men in brown coats and money bags, signs ststing parking fees and a wooden cabin. the two men had been there over 10 years to my knowage when i read in the paper that they had both been done and given a year in side. It turned up that they had no right to be there, and that the zoo was under the idea that they worked for the council and the council that they worked for the zoo. in fact they just worked for themselves. with things becoming harder for people we had all better take extra care of these scams over the next few years. michael The "Bristol Zoo Parking Attendant" story is a fantastic story. I've heard it told many times, and it's always entertaining. But sadly, it's just a made-up story that has been circulating the internet & pubs for many years now. I also use the Nationwide card and ahven't had a problem yet but thanks for the warning I'll make sure have some cash with us, something I've forgotten on the first night in previous years :$ O/T As to the Bristol Zoo parking attendant being a Bristolian and still living there I can back up BGD. It's a lovely story and normaly ends with the bloke getting to be millionaire and going off to Florida. Don't know where it started and I'd like it to be true but it's not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 sshortcircuit - 2011-04-12 2:36 PM Derick "Are you saying that, in the past, you've used a Nationwide debit-card successfully in French aire-de-services 'parking meters', or just saying that you've had no problems using that card elsewhere in France? " As the OP was about machines on aires, my question related to that use and I have successfully used it at aires. Elsewhere I had no problems. I am aware of the Nationwide 2% charge, however it is still a good deal. Thanks for the clarification. I've now got a Santander Zero current account that doesn't impose charges for use of the related debit card abroad. I use that debit card to wihdraw cash from eurozone ATMs and use my Nationwide credit-card for other eurozone transactions. It may be worth highlighting that, whatever the terms and conditions of a UK debit card regarding withdrawing cash from 'foreign' ATMs, the foreign bank that 'owns' the ATM can still impose its own charges. We encountered this recently with a Credit Mutual de Bretagne ATM. The ATM stated that an exchange rate of 0.9027 would be used to process the cash withdrawal transaction, whereas the 'official' exchange rate at the time was around the 0.88 mark. As we wanted the cash we chose to accept this. A subsequent withdrawal from a La Poste ATM (that doesn't impose its own charges) revealed that the Credit Mutual 'fee' had been around 2%. Presumably, if a UK card provider imposes charges, these will be on top of the fee imposed by the foreign bank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuevoboy Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 Well the Bristol Zoo story may be made up, but I can vouch for the old attendant who used to turn up occasionally at the Celtica car park in Machynlleth. He caught me out on a couple of occasions before I got wise to his scam. Never found out what happened to him. The only other time we got caught out was in Portugal, visiting Loule market one day. A couple of guys directed us onto a parking area and charged us a couple of Euros. Only when we returned from the market and they had scarpered did we realise it was some offices private car park. The spirit of enterprise lives on. :-) Regarding Normandy itself....went there once....much prefer Herefordshire. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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