Gas Station $150 temporary hold.

[joltdude]

i got burned by costco with a 150$ hold before.... wouldnt take it on my card, and there is no option to pay inside and my debit card only authorized for 5$.. so the fuel pump shut off after 5$ worth of gas went in,...   it turned out my bank put my last deposit in the wrong account.. good thing i kept the reciept... bank was like.. you shoulda opted in to overdraft protection.. Yeah and you would have charged me a 35$ fee and id have to fight to get it reversed... But we would have reversed it in this situation.. Nope... though that was a tight trip back to the bank and gas station again...

[mitchblue]

I hate going inside to pay.. Lines, too much chit chat - noisy as heck. So much faster paying at the pump.. Plus being disabled it takes me forever to walk inside. I haven't been inside in years.. I think Penfed only holds a buck.

[Anonymous]

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@neggwrote:

$150 is pretty reasonable these days. A lot of these suv are 30 gal tanks and at $3+ a gallon that’s almost $100. My grand Cherokee when bone dry is almost $110 fill up. 

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Makes me glad for my Hyundai Accent - even if it has to be filled up completely, at a 12-gallon tank that would be something like $30 at current prices in my area.

[Anonymous]

The only time i go inside is to use my $25 gift card provided by my employer.  I can't use it at the pump.  I never see a hold on that...but most of you might already knew that lol

[Anonymous]

The hold is not chosen by the bank or CC company.  The hold is set by the pump authorization system.  

Each pump is different, but many have moved away from a hold to a $1/auth then pushing the transaction through later.  This is why you can overdraft checking accounts, overlimit CC cards, etc... with a lot of pumps.

Some pumps on the other hand, still authorize "$xx" or "$xxx" amount and usually say it on the pump.  My experience has been most consumer pumps are $100 and most commercial pumps are $150+ or make you go inside.

[Anonymous]

Might be different with different cards.  WIth Discover at Shell, i see a $1/auth, with AMEX i see the exact amount.  This is just at Shell IME.

[kilroy8]

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@Anonymouswrote:

Might be different with different cards.  WIth Discover at Shell, i see a $1/auth, with AMEX i see the exact amount.  This is just at Shell IME.

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It varies depending on the vendor/business.  Kroger has a sign on their pumps that pre-auth will be $150 - period. People mostly get gas at the same place over and over, so they will need to use their own experience to learn the policies of that place. As I said earlier, I always prepay inside and the amount is exactly how much gas I get, not a penny more or less.

[mitchblue]

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@kilroy8wrote:

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@Anonymouswrote:

Might be different with different cards.  WIth Discover at Shell, i see a $1/auth, with AMEX i see the exact amount.  This is just at Shell IME.

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It varies depending on the vendor/business.  Kroger has a sign on their pumps that pre-auth will be $150 - period. People mostly get gas at the same place over and over, so they will need to use their own experience to learn the policies of that place. As I said earlier, I always prepay inside and the amount is exactly how much gas I get, not a penny more or less.

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Yep. I go to the same place always when I'm near home. Move further around the state same $1 hold/auth. but it's the same Gas company Circle K.

[UncleB]

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@kilroy8wrote:

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It varies depending on the vendor/business.  Kroger has a sign on their pumps that pre-auth will be $150 - period. People mostly get gas at the same place over and over, so they will need to use their own experience to learn the policies of that place. As I said earlier, I always prepay inside and the amount is exactly how much gas I get, not a penny more or less.

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Holy smoke! 

My Kroger doesn't have a sign like that, just a sign that there might be a hold for debit/prepaid card users and a suggestion to pay inside to avoid this (perhaps they just haven't put up the new signage yet?)

I have no idea how this works in-practice, since I've not used debit to pay for gas in years.  At my Kroger, when I've used my Discover or Sam's Club MC (my two go-to cards for gas, depending on the quarter) my pending charges just show the amount I purchased, at least the last time I checked (which I admit has been a while, and of course things change). 

This thread has prompted me to make a 'mental note' to check the next time I buy gas with a credit card, but it might be a while since I have some Kroger GCs I got from Lowe's (Amex Promo) that I'll be using first. 

[Anonymous]

It mainly depends on what authorization system the pumps use and how it's set up.

Since when you pay at the pump, the pump doesn't know how much gas you'll be pumping, they set an amount that is automatically authorized, and that's the amount of the "hold".  Once you finish pumping, at some point the actual amount gets submitted for payment and at that point the pending charge becomes the actual charge and the amount is adjusted to the actual purchase amount.

I've seen authorizations range from $50 to $75 or so, though I rarely notice them.  I've seen signs on some pumps that read "if you pay at the pump and need more than $75 worth of gas, you'll have to do 2 separate transactions or prepay inside."  Presumably on those it authorizes $75 and doesn't let you go over on a single transaction.  $100, $150 or $300 is a bit crazy, but if it's a station that truckers use, those amounts are not unheard of and the pump doesn't know if you're filling a Hyundai Accent or a Kenworth (well, except for the fact that you'll probably be filling the Kenworth with diesel).

One time, years ago, when I only had 1 card with a $500 limit, I tried getting gas when the card was nearly maxed out and was declined because they tried to authorize $50 when I knew I was only going to be putting $15 worth of gas in... I ended up using a debit card that time around.

The systems that authorize $1 and put the charge through regardless puts the gas station at greater risk, in the case that a card/account doesn't have enough funds to cover the amount purchased, they could take a loss.  If an overdraft or overlimit is possible, that will happen, but if it's a prepaid card it will simply bounce.

Going inside to pay works, but that's inconvenient, you have to guess how much gas you will need, and either end up underfilling or having to go back in for change (if paying cash... I'm guessing a card would just work similar to the way it does at the pump, the actual amount that is pumped ultimately gets charged).

The ideal solution would be to upgrade the pay-at-the-pump system so you can (optionally) enter the amount you want to spend before you swipe your card.  Then it can authorize you just for the amount you enter and it will only pump that much gas (no more of that wanting to put in $30 worth of gas and end up with $30.02 because you didn't stop quick enough).  If you know your gift card has $17.32 on it, enter that amount and get that much gas.