Reader Paul sends in this photo of a sign he saw at a gas station in Texas. First people were upset that gas stations were putting “outrageously high” holds of $100 on their cards when they paid at the pump. Now $100 is just the most you can buy at the pump without going inside and having them swipe your card. Sad.
Here’s a Washington Post article about consumers who aren’t able to fill their gas tanks for the usual (former?) “pay at the pump” limit of $75.
One expert explains:
The average station makes a profit of $60 at the pump per day, says Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores. “It’s not uncommon to lose money selling gas. So the idea of losing $20 or $50 [in charge backs] is too much.”
…
Stations “are faced with two bad options — allow the pump to go beyond $75 and risk not getting paid . . . or take a customer from frustrated [with gas prices] to outright anger,” Lenard said.
At the Pump And Past The Limit [Washington Post]
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@crlarkin:
$50 debit limit at a station here in Pittsburgh. I think it’s $75 for credit. So far I haven’t crossed the line yet.
@Sollus: SUVs are horrible in the snow, most don’t even have proper snow tires.
I’ve never had a pump preauth more than $1 on my debit card.
I had posted a similar story and sent it in several weeks ago. Guess they must’ve missed it.
Safeway Gasoline Visa $75 Limit
My story was more about the fact why there was a different limit for Visas compared to the other credit cards.
In there I discussed about the absurdity of such a low limit, but apparently you are allowed to swipe your card multiple times at the same pump, to bypass the $75 limit. Since credit cards collect extra fees per transaction, that just means more cost to the gasoline stations.
Credit card companies responded that people were allowed to go into the store and swipe there card there for a high transaction, but who’d give up the convenience of swiping at the pump for that.
Just another story about how credit card companies are screwing the little guys.
@rellog: @krunk4ever: Well, it’s also for the CC companies to limit the risk on unsigned CC transactions. Pay at the pump transactions don’t get a signature, so there’s a cap or else they get treated like internet purchases (with an even higher transaction fee rate). Apparently the rate difference is enough for the gas stations to prefer limiting the purchase amount.
@ianmac47: Nothing at all, but that’s not the issue. Gas stations routinely put a hold on your credit card for a fixed amount (in this case $100) regardless of how much you pump. If they put that hold on your account and then let you pump $150 but you only had $100.01 available they’re going to have problems when they go to put through the final charge. If you do two different transactions they’re putting two different holds and won’t run into that issue. This makes perfect sense and has nothing to do with their profit margin or making you go into the store (although I’m sure they love that too!)
This is nothing new at all. Filled the U-Haul last year, it needed $109. Pump slowed and stopped at $100. Hung up the gas, put the card in again, and topped it off.
$100 is probably the right amount, since that’s the hold they’ll put on the card. If this is inconvenient when you’re filling your beast, consider how much MORE inconvenient it is to the vast majority of people that drive cars that take less then $50 to fill to find they can’t use $50+ of their money for a day/week. If the station let you go over the hold amount, they can’t guarantee they’ll be paid. They probably don’t want to take the risk, considering how little profit the stations make on the gas (the real profit is made by the gas company, not the station owner, but the owner is on the hook for people who can’t pay).
So I didn’t read all of the posts to see if this has already been said, but here it goes. I just moved to TX from OH and I used a 17′ moving truck. The 30 gallon gas tank let me with almost no choice in paying more then $75-100 at the pump. If I needed more than the limit I simply replaced the nozzle, waited for the pump to reset and reinstered my card to keep filling up. I figured it was probably the best way to do it because I didn’t feel like dealing with gas station attendants…
I could have sworn that I read an article on here explaining this. There have almost always been $75 limits since as long as I’ve been pumping gas. I don’t really see this as being “sad.” IT’s not like you’re being charged anymore to, OMG, go inside and talk to a human being!
We use only one card for gas fill ups in our house.
The card is designated as a ” gas only ” card and has a 5k limit. As a result, we have never had any problems with fill-ups or “holds” affecting our $$.
We drive a convertible, an Explorer, a boat & a motorhome so we frequently run into the limits when filling the tanks. The easiest thing to do is turn off the pump, reset, reinsert card & repeat. Yes, it is a pain when you have to do this 4 times to fill the motorhomes 70 gallon tank but it is easier than going inside and begging the cashier to allow you to buy their product.
Oh and before anyone attacks me for having multiple vehicles, this still is America and I worked and paid for them all. If I want to spend my $$ on gasoline that is my right.
@AMetamorphosis: thank you thank you thank you!!! gets quite tiresome seeing the persistent bash/rant/self-righteousness fits about who should own what.
I’m one of those selfish bastards who has done chargebacks on pay at the pump purchases. A Speedway by my house, the cashier would re-run the numbers after the person drove away, for the same amount, resulting in a double charge and the cashier would pocket the double dip. Since the inside reports generate a WHOLE card number, not just last 4, In fact I successfully sued speedway several times as a result of their receitps continuing even as of 3 weeks ago, to display the whole card number. Now when they hand me a receipt, I take both copies and walk out, if they say anything, i tell em, I don’t trust them with my card number, if they want me *NOT* to do a chargeback, they’ll leave me be.
Sometimes the cashiers are just so stupid, they call the cops for theft because I refuse to sign the receipt. So I go on a speedway chargeback spree. Hundreds of hundreds of dollars in chargebacks as a result of them being an ass. And BofA agree’s with my logic,.