Make Sure the Gas Station Has Enough Gas Before Inserting Your Credit Card
Gas Station Mishaps Leading to Valid Credit Cards Being Frozen
For many years credit card companies have been freezing credit cards used to purchase less than a dollar of gas. This is because purchasing less than a dollar’s worth of gas is almost always a sure sign the credit card or debit card has been stolen and the thief is checking to see if it’s valid. Unfortunately, there are now other reasons for gas purchases to fall under a dollar.
How Out-of-Gas Storage Tanks Are Hurting Credit Card Consumers
Many gas stations around the country have been running out of gas on occasion. That’s not to say there’s a serious gasoline shortage – the gas station gets more gas within a day or so, but that doesn’t help the person who’s the last to pump the gas. Here’s why.
Let’s say you’re heading to your local gas station to get gas. You pull up to the pump, insert your credit card and begin to pump gas. A second or two later, the pump has nothing more to give and your purchase has come to a whopping total of forty cents. You let the station manager know what’s going on and go on your way, planning to purchase gas at a different station later on.
On your way home you run across another gas station. Other people are successfully filing their tanks so you assume it’s safe to pump gas there. You park your car, insert your card and to your surprise, your card is declined. What in the world is going on? Your credit card has been frozen thanks to the 40-cent gas purchase you made earlier.
How to Avoid This Credit Card Scenario
If you do find yourself pumping less than a dollar’s worth of gas, call your credit card company immediately and let them know that it happened and explain why. If you contact them before they freeze your credit card, you can avoid headaches when you find a gas station that really does have gas for sale.
Comments
Yeah, sounds good to me. Never encountered this kinda of situation, but i'm shore it's a good idea.
Thinking about this, i'm shore that not only the gas stations are vulnerable to this situation. Why? 'cause you've got cameras everywhere. The car number can be recorded, and so on, you've got a trace on the stolen card. I bet the same situation can be encountered on the small shops as well - with or without a security camera system - but mostly on those without that, that support this kinda of payment
The security of the shop it's not that important. I really think, the best way to skip this stays in the client's actions
How? By all any means, notify them a second after you've noticed you've got a missing card, DO NOT show you serial# to ANYONE.
They must implement some kinda of option once a month or some like that where you can actually call and without any other authorization - and say that you'd like to suspend any possible activity with your account.
In maximum 12 working hours, you'd have to go to the closest bank, and actually authorize the suspend process with some IDs and if you have the initial papers - when you've opened the account and stuff like that. If the 12 hours passed, and you didn't authorised the freezing process, the account will be up and working again.
I'm saying that because no security measure will stop a stupid bank client from being robed, even if it happens online, or physical all any other way. It's stupid to be able to froze your account just by saying your name, but once every month, with the notification from the bank, some like a verification, maybe they'll call the client back to the number registered on the account. to make shore -> i really believe it's a good idea.
Sorry if it sounds stupid, but i really believe you cannot protect an idiot from loosing something unless he cares and actually understands the situation he's in.
Cheers,
Bogdan Ciocoiu
Romania
Posted by: Bogdan Ciocoiu | September 20, 2006 6:12 AM