• Dual pin in France & offline in France

Hi, my experience is that dual pin never works in France. I'm talking for online payments only because my other experience is that offline never works either... (despite my understanding is that the Bunq travel card should have a 250 € offline authorization capability).
I guess there is someting specific with terminal configuration in France...
Any french user having a different experience?

    @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131822 have you ever tried making a money withdrawal? Only after that the offline paying capability (with said limit) will be enabled. Any online terminal should work for this, but a money withdrawal is the recommend way as those are in most cases connected to the internet.

      @Sander#131824 Oui j'ai effectué un retrait avec succès il y a 3 semaines mais encore aujourd'hui j'ai eu un refus d'autorisation à un automate de station essence.

        @Sander#131824 Yes. I successfully did a withdrawal 3 weeks ago but no later than today, I had another rejection at an offline gas station terminal.

          @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131825 Hey Manuel, first a quick info that Together has a built in translator, Sander actually replied in English :)
          There is offline PIN and offline payments, but offline PIN also works with online payments and it's veeery common in France to use offline PIN, even if the payment itself is online. Dual PIN can only work with Online PIN terminals, as you can't store 2 PINs on one chip and that's why it fails for you.

          When you did a cash withdrawal successfully offline payments (and offline PIN!) should work. Do you see any event in the bunq app showing up when you try to pay? Any specific error at the gas station? I personally could already use my Travel Card on a plane completely offline (the payment is still not showing up), and other people could also use it successfully already.
          It might be an issue with the specific gas station terminal.. when you say "offline never works either" - how often and at how many different places did you try it? Even in France offline payments shouldn't be that common and gas stations aren't always offline either, especially in Europe, that's more of an issue outside of Europe.

            @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131826 Also important: When you change the PIN in the app you have to do another cash withdrawal to get the PIN on the chip again, to get offline PIN to work.

              @johannes#131827 Hi, yes thanks, I realized that and replyed again in English. Sorry.
              I suspected something like this offline pin/online payment you describe. It seems the default here in France unfortunately.

              Regarding offline payment I only get an immediate rejection from the terminal. Nothing appears in the Bunq app. I tried three times at two different gas stations. I will continue but it bothers me that I have to keep another card just in case... That's a cost.

                @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131829 So even before you type in the PIN you immediate get a rejection? That's really weird. Do you know if it's a chip terminal or magstripe terminal?

                  @johannes#131828 Thank you for all your advices. I will keep trying but was hoping another French user could bring his own experience in.
                  By the way, is there a way to know if a terminal is online or offline ?

                    @johannes#131831 No no after the PIN. I meant "immediate" as in no delay between PIN and rejection. It's a chip terminal, magstripe are very rare if any in France.

                      @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131833 For the first one: Not really, you just won't see the payment in the bunq app for a while. For the 2. one: Did you do the ATM withdrawals AFTER you changed your PIN the last time? This is really important.
                      And I actually used my bunq Debit MC in France a few times, with the same limits and never had issues.

                        @johannes#131834 Yes, I actually never changed my PIN after activating the card. I will do another withdrawal anyway, just to be sure.

                          @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131835 But before you do change your PIN again, maybe your failed dual PIN attempts exceeded 3?

                            I never tried the dual PIN more than once in a row, I go back to the main PIN when it fails. I will change it anyway. Thanks again.

                              @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131835 And two more things: One rare issue could be, that the card is too new. In some rare cases terminals filter by "BIN" (the first 6 digits of a card) to only allow e.g. EU cards. The bunq Travel Card BIN was an US BIN before and maybe this gas stations don't allow US cards, but didn't got a new BIN database update yet. There were a few similar cases, and they all got solved after a few days/weeks. It just depends on the terminal provider (and is also an issue with other banks issuing new cards).
                              And I'm pretty active on together, sometimes you have someone asking in French about a "declined PIN" message, which is caused by offline PIN. But besides that I never really read about similar issues in France.

                                @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131837 Oh and you have one free replacement per year, if it's really super often failing for you, it might be just the card :/

                                  Ok great. I will try again and give feedback. I really appreciate your help.

                                    @johannes#131839 Oh no! Most of the time it works perfectly and the dual PIN is not critical to me. But maybe 5-10% of the time (offline or terminal connection issue) it fails.

                                      @Manuel-Purple-Falcon#131841 Hm, are you on Premium or Travel Card Membership?

                                        @johannes#131842 I have a joint subscription, I think it's quite equivalent to Premium as for the features.