My wife and I are currently driving cross country (US), and earlier in the day we stopped at a Pilot gas station in Tennessee.
I exited the vehicle, tapped my card on the thing to authorize my card and pay, got about 30 bucks of gas, then went inside and paid for a drink and snacks with a different card.
300 miles later, we stop at another gas station and while we do we check our cards and notice a 150 dollar charge on the same card used for gas at that exact Pilot. Strangely the 30 dollar charge for the gas was there too. We immediately call our credit card company and they say its a pending charge and cannot do anything about it until its went through, so we pause the card.
I call the gas station itself and spoke to a manager, and was told its an authorization charge and will go away. 150 dollars is a crazy amount for an authorization charge and makes little sense to me, has anyone ever experienced this before? Is it normal?
(Meta: I didn’t know where else to put this, but wanted to ask my fellow Lemmites, is that okay?)
Update: The charge has been removed from our account, so alls good. This is the first time I have ever seen an authorization charge so big, so it scared me, thanks to everyone for informing me on these charges, I’ll know to keep my eye out in the future and not worry so much!
I bet banks could have policy on top of this, but I doubt they do. 50 bucks is yikes.
I’ve actually experienced it. I discovered it was missing after the thief had used it, and the bank refunded the full amount, plus the overdraft fee I incurred by making a purchase using the card number after the thief had drained the account.
Oh I misunderstood. Maybe I shouldn’t lemmy when im still half asleep lol.
I read it as they will only pay 50 bucks, not 50 liability pay.
Glad you got your money back! That must have been stressful.
It was stressful. I was pretty young and pretty broke.
A gas station attendant didn’t return it when I made a purchase, and I was distracted so I didn’t notice. He then put gas in his own car at his own gas station using it. I came back the next day with a cop, and he confessed. The cop called his boss and he got fired. I got a report to give to the bank.
At the time, I was a little annoyed the cop didn’t arrest him, but he was probably as broke as I was and significantly dumber to commit such a stupid crime.
Yeah, gas stations aren’t known to pay well. Still doesn’t mean its okay to take someone else’s card.
I’m certainly not going to defend the guy who stole from me, but I’m a little less eager to see the cops put someone in jail than I was then. Losing his job probably ruined his whole month at least.
For sure. That’s decent punishment, who knows what kind of fallout happened in his life after that. Shunned by family? Lost apartment? Repod car? Its crazy how those sort of things domino effect a life.