Spot on. I remember trying to get petrol in Belgium at night sometime in the late 90s. The country had its own smart debit card programme (very leading edge) and garages there had unattended pumps that would accept these cards to cater for out-of-hours customers. But, being a UK tourist without a local payment card, I was stuffed. Stopped at every garage along the way, getting increasingly concerned, before coasting in on fumes to one that was actually open all night and would accept my Visa or MC.

I've had that last summer driving through Germany - stopped to charge my car, only to discover that all charging stations at that particular Auobahn station will only accept a German-issued[0] debit or credit cards. As a tourist....tough luck I guess?

[0]I knew it because of course you had to use an app to start charging, and the app had a pre-filled and unchangable country set to Germany for billing details.

I had that problem with rail tickets in Germany, too... stations with machines that would only accept the local kind of bank card, not my Visa card.

Weirdly, at the main station in Bochum (for example), there were some machines that would accept a Visa card - but even the staff in the in-person ticket office seemed to be completely ignorant of this. (And no, they wouldn't accept my card there, either. But eventually - no thanks to DB's staff - I found a machine I could use.)

Let's just say I wasn't impressed.

I've run into a similar problem in Sweden with parking. Many places have app-controlled parking, I have the biggest apps, but some parking places have other solutions. One place had removed the on-site machines that took card payments, and only had a phone number. I called the number from my Swedish phone number, entered my Swedish personal ID number, and then the automated service informed me that they couldn't process me because I wasn't a Swedish resident... So there was no way for me to pay for my parking.

Non-swedes would be even more shit out of luck than I was, they wouldn't even be able to navigate the phone service. So weird.

This happened to me driving from Germany to the Netherlands on a Sunday. We needed petrol but could not stop in Belgium because all of the stations were closed and the machines only accepted a Belgian bank card. Luckily we were close enough to Luxembourg to get petrol there. This was around 2004/05. I wonder if it's still this way now

Thats a really good point regarding EU citizens having access to this service. Swedish services are thoroughly tied to the bankid/personnal number. There is a EU regulation [1] somewhat related to this that prevent sellers from discriminating the availability of goods based on your place of residence.

I wonder if this regulation applies to these shops.

A couple of paragraphs are particularly interesting, #18 and #19:

(18) [...] traders should not, through the use of technological measures or otherwise, prevent customers from having full and equal access to online interfaces, including in the form of mobile applications, based on their nationality, place of residence or place of establishment. [...]

(19) In order to ensure the equal treatment of customers and to avoid discrimination, as required by this Regulation, traders should not design their online interface, or apply technological means, in a way that would, in practice, not allow customers from other Member States to easily complete their orders.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=15422088...

I'm pretty sure the regulation is violated all the time everywhere, i.e. vending machines that require some local electronic card (e.g. to prove your age for sigarettes).

It's a pity, of course, but not a "new" problem.

Which EU countries have cigarette vending machines? I've never seen such a thing, in the countries I shop they're behind a cashier. Sometimes even hidden so that if you don't know what to ask for you're not getting it.

Germany, Austria, Italy at least.

In Germany, cigarette vending machines were incredibly common until around 15 years ago, but I haven't seen one in ages. Between stricter age verification requirements, a decline in smoking in general, and vandalism towards those machines, the profit margin was probably stretched too slim to continue maintaining these machines.

Spain as well, you can't get cigs from gas stations or super markets like in the UK.

Interesting, I'll have to keep my eyes a bit more open when traveling.

Netherlands and Germany have them.