A Russian tourist tested a card of the Russian payment system “MIR”, linked to a ruble account, in the shops of the resort of Alania and stated that the “plastic” works, but with varying degrees of success, since there are some nuances. She spoke about this in a blog on the Yandex.Zen platform.
The MIR bank card from Tinkoff worked in large stores of the international chains Metro and Carrefour. However, in the Turkish network of Şok stores in the resort village of Mahmutlar, it was not possible to pay for purchases with a card (Yapıkredı terminal): the bank not only rejected the operation, it did not even “see” it, so the author was denied the purchase. Users of specialized forums also complained about similar problems, talking about the MIR card from Sberbank.
As for the nuances of paying with the MIR card in Turkey, they are as follows:
- Before using the card for the first time, you need to contact the bank's support service and request its activation. To do this, you will need to name the last four digits of the number and its validity period. Other data from the “plastic” is not needed. According to the Russian woman, it takes one minute. If the card is not activated, any payment will be rejected.
- Despite the fact that the Russian bank card is positioned as contactless, as evidenced by a special icon on the plastic, however, in reality, contactless purchases will not work, so you need to insert it to the terminal.
- Whether the payment goes through depends on which terminal the store uses. As stated above, it was not possible to make a payment through the Yapıkredı terminal. According to the opinions of emigrants, it does not work through Garantibank either.
- The rate for converting the ruble into Turkish lira depends on the bank, it is indicated in the application or on the website. On the day of testing a bank card, the exchange rate was 9.5 rubles per lira. “After the operations were authorized, the amount did not change,” she concluded.
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