OK, I need some help here please. I am a little confused.
Although working here for 6 months, my bank account and cards are still UK so the usual Maestro/Mastercard/Visa. Having had a couple of retail episodes, can you please tell me what you can/can't pay for with plastic as some stores, normally supermarket/convenience store gladly take my credit cards, but after a trip to Media Markt/Saturn they only wanted cash...

Thanks

Bank debit cards are universally accepted (including at Media/Saturn and just about everywhere else). Credit cards are not.

But the bank debit cards are limited by daily withdrawl limits ... so if you're trying to buy something for EUR2,400 the machine will let you take out c. EUR800 and then tilt.

Then, you find yourself running around outside of the store looking for two more bank machines and hoping you don't get mugged on the way back.

Saturn is weird anyway: The Saturn in downtown Munich accepts credit cards. Most other Saturns apparently do not.

Same with Tengelmann: Some stores accept them, others don't.

That is true for withdrawing cash from a machine, but not for using the card to pay for an item. I'm not really sure what your point is.

The EC debit card is widely accepted, but some smaller stores will accept cash only. British debit cards such as Switch generally won't be accepted here.

A lot of outlets still only want cash or EC card. Not a "credit card" (which of course here is a term that includes certain debit cards like Visa ones).

Remember that the EC card and credit / debit cards use different systems - compare the numbering conventions for the cards say. There is no global "one size fits all" for electronic payment but we often don't realise this until we find ourself in a place hat uses one we are not used to.

Also rememer that companies that accept credit / debit cards in the UK don't always do so here. It's EC or cash at Ikea, say.

My point is it literally happened to me ... at Saturn.

TT: Where everyone second-guesses everything ... including bona fide real life experience.

What "literally" happened to you; you decided to pay cash rather than use your debit card?

People have no choice but to second-guess if the original statements are unclear.

We should split here between EC LSV and EC-Cash.

EC-Cash will check with your bank on whether the transaction is possible (read: whether there's enough money and no limits on the account), LSV will obviously not.

This may not be much of a help, but I've basically given up on using my credit card over here. The only place I know accepts them is Galeria Kaufhof. Other than that, I save my credit card for online shopping.
The hassle of figuring out who will and who will not take my card is tiring -- I gave up.

British debit cards are accepted as if they were credit cards by some shops and by Deutche Bahn. What drives me utterly spastic is that shops that accept EC cards generally do not accept credit cards and shops that accept credit cards generally do not accept EC cards.

in Ikea & Rewe they take my Maestro card but other places like Gortz(shoe store in Hamburg) they take EC but when my card is swiped it doesnt work for them, so cash only.

get an EC card then, it s what we have all had to do in the end anyway.

my point is that the Maestro is basically an EC card, it works in 50% of places but in others.

From: EC card payment refused by some stores

So it depends on how the store processes the UK based Maestro card.