Here is a little information for anyone who uses the Teso home shopping delivery service. When you pay by debit card Tesco validate your account by requesting £2.00 from it as a tester. Customer services state that this sum does not come off or effect your balance, In reality for up to a 24 hour period it does.
I understand and can appreciate why a firm would use this procedure, however the sum is usually a smaller and an insignifiacant amount of just 20p. I wonder how much financial benefit Tesco get by this action, £2.00 for every shopper across the country for up to a day?
If you were on a limited budget and were being careful of your expenditure, this tester sum could take you over your limit and if charges were applied, who would pay?
I can’t imagine that Tesco would make all that much money from this with interest rates being as low as they are at the moment.
Also, there’s really no need for this with 3D Authentication (chip and pin for the web) becoming so prevalent now.