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!
150 dollars is a crazy amount for an authorization charge and makes little sense to me
You obviously don’t drive a V8 pickup. Some have tanks as big as 48 gallons.
Can confirm. I’ve seen $145 charges at Costco gas. Big truck country, where gas is cheap…
Both of you guys are missing the point.
He wasnt charged 150 bucks for gas.
The gas station is using a 150 dollar pre-charge to make sure the card is good. most places only do a 1 dollar pre-charge.
150 is stupid.
They do a charge that would cover a tank of gas to make sure there’s enough on the card for the transaction.
Yikes. Big trucks aren’t my cup of tea so yeah, I don’t.
If you’re in the states just use a credit card. Hold is out there but as long as you aren’t going towards your limit then it’s fine and ignorable. Just pay it off every month and it’ll build your credit too. I don’t even carry a debit card with me anymore.
I’d argue carrying cash or a debit is important for small businesses and things like the farmers market to save them from credit card fees. Otherwise I completely agree with you; everything goes on the credit
It’s got something to do with max fund preallocation / preauthorization. This is normal for gas stations, supposedly it keeps card thieves from armada fueling and leaving the station holding a grand of irrecoverable debt. Some banks won’t show these background transactions, some only show one dollar, some show the full amount. The exact specifics you’re shown vary between banks and stations, but it is normal and happens all the time.
in Canada you can set the authorization amount in $50 increments from $50.
In every country I’ve ever been to, this doesn’t exist.
They got you on camera and if you don’t pay, they’ll just give the police your license plate.
$150 is about normal these days. The pumps will usually have a little sticker somewhere that list the authorization hold amounts.
Fun fact: The auth holds used to be $1 way back in the day. But when prepaid debit cards came around, people could have a balance of $1 on them, get $50 worth of gas, and the station wouldn’t be able to charge the actual amount (it would decline for NSF with no way to recover it as with a regular debit/credit card). That’s why the hold amounts are between $75 and $150.
If you want to avoid the authorization hold, you can either pay cash or pre-pay with a cashier; the latter case will charge only what you pay.
Wow, I’ve never actually seen the charge itself before. I sure am glad I asked here, I like seeing real answers.
Also, be aware that if it is debit and not credit card, it can take quite a while for the hold to come off. This isn’t on the gas station, it’s on how quickly your bank handles them. My bank it’s around 2-3 business days, but I know some it can be up to four weeks. Granted, this is my experiences in Asia and around Europe, but wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same in the US.
If you think that’s the case, confirm with your bank before you using it and accidentally end up with a few hundred on your account just stuck there for a while.
I don’t think these happen with debit in the US, but if something happens and your card gets stolen your screwed out of that money with debit usually, so we always use credit.
if something happens and your card gets stolen your screwed out of that money with debit usually
In the USA, if you report the card missing within two days of discovering that it is missing, your liability is limited to $50.
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 probably 10 years ago, but I’m in the US and had one of these on my debit card for a few days. I believe it’s if you use a physical card at the pump.
Certainly in the UK, the £1 preauth was just a check to see if the card was valid. Once the issuer returned the thumbs up, there was no cap on what you could draw from the pump.
Either a scenario like the above would happen, or people who were running on fumes two days before payday would do this stunt - full up with sixty quid’s worth of fuel - and when it bounced, would go back in on payday and be like “hey that’s weird, sounds like your machines are acting up” and nobody would be any the wiser.
Now it’s a near universal £99 preauth at unstaffed pumps.
Normal hold charge here is either $200 or $250.
Story on this one. As a young adult I needed gas to drive to my second job a town over, maybe 12 miles. I had $75 in my account which was plenty to fill up.
When I started the process, my card was declined. I tried and failed a few times, then went inside the store and had them try there to no success. The cashier mentioned that the hold amount was set by the bank.
Hearing this I went down the road too my bank and asked them what the fuck was going on, to which they said it was normal and that my funds were locked until the transaction went through. The 0$ transaction.
I managed to scrounge up enough change and a single $5 bill I had in my wallet to buy like 2 gallons of gas which was just enough to get to work and back. Shortly thereafter I closed my account at that bank and transferred everything to a credit union I have been much happier with.
It’s €250 where I live. Never thought anything of it actually. I guess I don’t really mind
My understanding about this and if I remember correctly they charged the maximum amount that the pump will let you pump so if the pump will let you pump 50 gallons they authorize the dollar amount for that amount of gas.
After that they charge the amount of gas that you actually get and delete the first charge. Normally this happens fast enough that you don’t ever see it on your account. If you were in the middle of nowhere though, they might have been using tile up for their credit card system and that could delay things.
$150 sounds about normal. I put gas into a motor home with an 85 gallon tank. Generally the pumps will cut off once or even twice before the tank is full — sometimes at $100, sometimes at $125, sometimes at $150
They don’t actually charge the extra, so once get over the initial shock of thinking you got stolen from, this is not a real problem (unless you’re running your card right up to the ragged edge of your credit limit.)
So it’s basically yet another way to screw over poor people? Gotcha.
I feel like this one is more just total indifference to the screwing over of poor people, rather than active attempts.
It’s not like rearranging the order of your daily back transactions to put deposits and small withdrawals last, where they’re creating more overdrafts on purpose to extract more fees from poor people. That one really steamed my gizzard back when I was living paycheck to paycheck. That was active malice.
This one is not making them any money. It’s more of a casual “I want to make sure nobody rips me off by taking gas they’re credit card won’t cover, and I don’t give any shits about how that makes poor people unable to buy gas and groceries on the same day “
It’s mostly to prevent people using a prepaid card from buying more gas than the card has funds for.
They’re making a fortune in interest this way.
Not so.
The gas station putting the hold on was never getting any interest anyway.
The credit card company is not getting interest because a temporary hold is not a purchase.
Prepay inside and you’ll never have this issue. You get to chat with a bored cashier as well.
I just never know how much to get exactly is all.
If you pay with a card inside, just ask for a full tank or round up to whatever you know the vehicle will fit. Everywhere I’ve visited refunds the remainder automatically to your card without you going back in. Generally, at least in my area any refund is done almost immediately too but you could ask the cashier if you’re concerned about the specifics.
They need to make it big enough to cover folks driving F-350’s or something. Idk how much they take. It was generally $75 about 5 years ago. They don’t do that with credit cards. Hotels are really awful about that, too.
They definitely do it with credit cards
Well, I’ve never had a problem with credit cards. Maybe they handle going over your limit differently. Hell, I couldn’t even rent a car with a debit card once when I was traveling for business.
$150 is the most they can, I believe. It’s normal and it fucking sucks. That being said, I have debit cards that will only authorize for the amount you use (like, I have $30 in my account, it clears, pump for $15 of gas, no residual hold). I know there’s good reasons to use a credit card on a trip, but they’re a pain for the pre-auth. It’s supposed go away in a few hours normally — maybe by the end of the day?
There’s a station near me that does $175, even on debit cards. If I have to get gas there, I pre-pay inside with singles and change. (I ride a motorcycle and the most I spend is $5.)
That’s horrific.
The annoying thing is that the credit cards fully support authorizing for some amount likely to cover the transaction and using the same transaction to capture so no lingering auth sits around.
If a merchant has captured the funds and still has a hold sitting around the someone has implemented something wrong.
but they’re a pain for the pre-auth.
I think I’ve only ever had a credit card decline one me once for being outside of my normal area. What kind of cards do you have?
I meant that credit cards specifically tend to get a preauthorization hold at gas stations, at least in my experience.
I will get declines on debit cards from my credit union if I don’t tell them I’ll be out of area within about two states. BofA has a feature where if you open their app with location on, it’ll register you as traveling in whatever area. Amex, never had a problem. Can’t speak for the others.
Gas station or truck stop? If the latter, it isn’t that shocking that they might lazily use the same authorization charge amount for cars as they do for 18-wheelers.
Filling up an 18 wheeler can cost $1000. I don’t think the truck stops are using our piddly $150 car-side gas pump limits for the diesel pumps on the truck side.
Filling up my gas motor home at regular car gas station pumps all over, I find that Truck stops, big chain gas stations, little podunk gas stains in the middle of nowhere all use limits from $100-$200, which is not enough for me to fill up. My guess is that number used to be “safely big enough to fill up anything” and they haven’t adjusted it as the gas prices went up.
Yeah it was a truck stop, seems to be the case.
Heres me living in Aus reading these comments saying this is normal, thinking its insane. We just pull up to the bowser, wave to the cashier and start pumping petrol. People would be livid if they saw a $150 auth charge. The petrol station would be getting dragged in the news.
I’m from Europe and it’s unheard of in my area. Although gas stations here work quite differebtly from US ones.
You drive up to the tanking machine. You take the gun and start tanking. No credit card terminal, no nothing on it. Just a display of liters pumped and amount owed.
When you finish, you enter the station, say the tanking plot number and pay that exact amount.
If you run off… I guess they call the police?
I’ve never had it happen to me, but if you were out of cash and all the cards you had failed for some reason you’d merely exchange contact info and pay in a few days via bank transfer, CC, cash or whatever.
If you don’t, you’ll get a court order within a year to pay the amount + some interest + court fees. That’s enough of an incentive for people to pay, I guess.
If you just tank up and leave, you could get booked for theft. Most places have cameras and cars have licence plates, so finding the offender is quite simple.
Therefore, no preauth.
Funny, $200 is standard in NZ if you pre pay. Can usually post pay though as you say.
Or guess how much fuel you’re going to need and pre-auth a little more than that.
Lucky! I only just now learned this was normal now, but damn does it suck that it does. Im not sure why there isn’t a system to authorize outside charging cards, seems backwards to me.
I would guess that you have the same thing happen there - you just never noticed/looked at the right time to see those charges. Fuel stations don’t want you to fill your tank and then discover you can’t afford the fuel, so they have some sort of arrangement with the credit cards to verify that you can afford the fuel before you put it in.
In Australia we fill up first and then go in to pay.
I think you can prepay in some apps or at truck stops or whatever but its far from the norm and usually a choice.
Credit card doesn’t leave the wallet till I go in to pay. There’s no way for them to magic the charges onto the card.
Oh, so you don’t have pay at the pump and so have to wait in line? I remember those days. The station takes more risk of someone driving off without paying but it mostly works for them. Not pleasant for the customer who is waiting in line behind someone who is trying to decide which lottery ticket to buy or whatever they are being slow on.
I’ll usually see $100, but $150 isn’t insane, especially at a truck stop. It’s just pending, because they don’t actualy process the charge until they close the books later, at which time the actual amount is cross-referenced with the pending amount, the pending amount is canceled, and the actual amount is charged.
tl;dr: Don’t worry about it.
$100-150 is typical for a gas station holding charge. In my experience, they only do this for credit cards, but not debit cards and also doesn’t get overcharged like that if you pay inside, but it also depends on the station.
