| Author | Message | ||
     Heyzeus |
Watch out for Chevron gas stations. If you pay for gas at the pump they hold 126.00 every time you get gas. So if you are on a ride and you fill up 5.00 to 10 bucks and you do this three times you will be charged 378 dollars. They will hold your money until your bank pays them. You get the money back that is not used. This could take a week. So if you have bills that are outstanding you could have bounced checks. I found this out when my bank called to check if there was something fishy going on with my card. Use cash on your rides or don't use Chevron. This may be just a California thing I do not know. | ||
| Aesquire |
Chevron is not the only store that does this. It's been going on for years. I don't like it for your obvious reasons. It's only on debit cards. ( wouldn't make a diff on credit unless you're bouncing off the limit. Suck's more, then, since you get a refused charge... ) So use cash or credit. I've had to replace debit cards because they hacked the Sam's Club system. You don't have as much protection with debit from fraud..... but I still use them since I'm trying real hard to burn down stupid credit card debt. And the Van I run in winter takes $100++ fill ups. Easy to go into more debt with that. Too bad the Occupiers aren't protesting THIS. | ||
| Bigblock |
What law has been changed that allows these scumbag corporations to steal from us like this? My latest cell phone bill had an additional 10$ charge this month and next. After spending an hour on the phone, I found at&t has contracts with companies for cell purchases. They sent me a text at 3am, and because I didn't respond "no" immediately, I was automatically signed up and charged for some unknown service. So Chevron is stealing $126 from you, illegally collecting the interest, then giving back the balance of the gas charge when they think they have stolen enough of your interest? Holy Smokes, that is so disgusting. I then found out to make sure this doesn't keep happening, I had to "block purchases" on my cell service. They then went on with some lame song and dance about how they wouldn't even charge me for this "additional service". WTF! Can i just send a text to anyone I want now and automatically just take 10$ a month from them? How about I collect 40$ an hour from every stupid corporation that makes me wait on the phone! I think I may drop at&t, go with someone else. I certainly won't be buying any gas from chevron! | ||
| Pwnzor |
I use Chevron/Texaco exclusively. I use the demon PayPal Mastercard with no issues whatsoever. Never heard of the issue you're having and I check all my statements and balances multiple times daily. Gas transactions take at least 48 hours before they even appear on my statement. Are you swiping your debit card and entering a pin number? If so, you need to cease that practice immediately. Select the credit option even though it's not a credit card. | ||
| Mayerhd |
Are you positive it's Chevron and not your own bank? I know here (WI) that several stations have warnings posted that if you pay with a debit card YOUR financial institute may put a hold on the funds, not the gas station. Just a thought. | ||
| Fahren |
What Pwnzor says is important: there is more and more ATM card ID theft going on: people put fake card readers over the real one and get your card info - then they can get your PIN either with the same fake keypad device, or by installing cameras that view you as you enter your PIN. Result: instant theft, usually done over weekends, so no one is checking the gas or ATM machines as much - and some joker overseas is buying stuff on a counterfeit debit card...out of your. account. Solution: don't use your PIN if possible - they can't use your card if they just have the data off the magnetic strip w/o your PIN. As to Chevron, no idea. Never seen this. It sucks, though, whether from the bank or the station. It wouldn't surprise me to see the banks doing this: great way to rack up some fees to further charge you for the "privilege" of using your money. Find a credit union, and do your banking there. | ||
| Whitetrashxb |
my 7-11 would do it down the street if i payed at the pump, on my discover card no less. They do it to verify funds. Several high end night clubs do a similiar process of pre-running your card if you're gonna open a tab to verify funds before they let u run up a high tab...But if i would go inside to the counter and tell the clerk "$10 on pump 3' then that wouldn't happen. just a thought.... | ||
| Syonyk |
Alright, since this is pretty squarely in one of my realms... So Chevron is stealing $126 from you, illegally collecting the interest, then giving back the balance of the gas charge when they think they have stolen enough of your interest? Holy Smokes, that is so disgusting. No - Chevron doesn't "see" that $126. That's just an authorization on your card. The way credit cards (and debit cards running as credit - not 100% sure about the debit run with a PIN process) work is as follows: - The merchant gets the card data, and runs an authorization. This asks the CC company, "I have this card data, and would like to run a $100 charge - does the card have this balance available?" The card company says yes or no, and keeps the authorization active for typically a month, or until the capture happens. At this point, the merchant does NOT have any of the money - if the merchant does not do anything else, they will not receive a dime, and the authorization will expire, giving you your credit back. What they have to do to get the money transferred to them is to perform a "capture" transaction - this is where you say, "Ok, I'm done/item has been delivered/is ready to ship/etc, please commit the transaction for the value $X." $X can be less than the authorized amount, or in some cases somewhat more. The problem comes when you've got something like gasoline. You need to verify the card before you allow the customer to pump, but you have no idea how much they'll put in. They may put $5 in, they may put $20 in, they may put $150 in. There's *no way to know* ahead of time. So, there are two approaches I've seen. The first is to use a $0.01 authorization, and the actual value as the capture amount. This verifies that the card is good, but doesn't verify that it has the appropriate amount on it. I can get a gift Visa for $0.01, go to a gas station that does this penny authorization, and it will let me fill up a truck for whatever the max amount it allows in one transaction is - but the gas station will never get paid, because the $150 capture request will fail. And, at that point, without more information on the purchaser, the gas station eats the loss. CC company says, "Sorry, you asked if the card had $0.01 on it, then tried to capture $150 - the card only had $0.01 on it. Your loss." The other way, which is what's upsetting people here, is to perform an authorization for the maximum possible value the pump will dispense in one transaction. This used to be $50, I've seen $75, and apparently now is $125 or so. This is safer for the gas station, because they set the pumps to turn off at whatever the limit is. If they authorize $75 on the card, and the pump turns off at $75, that $75 capture will succeed. If they authorize $75 and let you pump $100, they're back in the same situation as before, where they can't capture the full amount. So, basically, what they're doing is ensuring they'll be paid. My guess, based on them doing this, is that they were losing a lot of money to $0.01 authorizations and said "Enough." If you don't like it, don't shop there. But this is just how the credit card system is set up. If you want to create a new payment revolution that will fix the issues, more power to you. But this is how things are set up, and this is how it works, currently. Now, as far as skimmers go (to pull card info/PIN/etc), they're getting very, very good. It's hard to tell the fakes from the real machine anymore. My personal solution is to use my credit card for everything I can, and my debit card only where required (Costco, usually). It's a lot harder to put a skimmer on a reader machine in the store, though not impossible. It's one place where I disagree with Dave Ramsey.  | ||
| Bigblock |
Doesn't sound quite as dirty as I assumed, but there must be a better way! I'm still pissed at at&t, but I did get them to give me an additional $10.50 credit for time I spent trying to straighten the problem out. We'll see if I get the money back on my next bill... | ||
| Macbuell |
Syonyk is right on. This happens because back in the day the $0.01 was preauthed and the card holder would get $50 in gas when they only have $10 in their account. And then the gas company would be left holding the bag, so to speak. So they raised the PreAuth amount to protect themselves from that kind of stuff. As usual, us honest folks are the ones that have to deal with the inconvenience. | ||
| Froggy |
Restaurants often pre-auth too when you first give them your card, they charge the bill amount plus a few bucks more to cover the tip, then finalize it with the real total after you sign. | ||
| Syonyk |
Doesn't sound quite as dirty as I assumed, but there must be a better way! Proposals are welcome. The only real solution I've seen is the SpeedPass type things - you have an account with the gas company, they know who you are, and if your charge bounces, they come after you directly. In terms of a general solution, I'd certainly like to hear proposals for ways to improve it. Reducing the authorize/capture delay would certainly help, but that's already doable if a company wants to. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Kind of related.I paid my property tax on line and got hooked for a $25.00 charge for paying it on line by the company that provides the service to the county to pay the property tax on line. NOTHING on the county web site about the charge for paying on line! Called the county and they said "that's the way it works".  | ||
| Teeps |
I use a Discover card at Chevron all the time; no such issues for me either. | ||
| Ourdee |
Doesn't sound quite as dirty as I assumed, but there must be a better way! I always use cash. | ||
| 01x1buell |
here in pa i am only charged $1 on my card before i fill up.. i checked my account online as soon as i put my debit card in. | ||
| Dfbutler |
I only use Chevron if possible and have never experienced this. | ||
| Kilroy |
Go in and pay a pre-determined amount, say 50 or 60 bucks. That is what is authorized and that is what gets dispensed. | ||
| Buellifer |
Just put it threw as a credit card... I found most gas pump card reader ask is this a debit card. Just push no then it will ask you to input your zip code That is what credit cards use for security you billing zip. My credit Union wants me to use my debit as credit as much as possible... Safer and they charge me .75 per transaction after 5 when used as a debit. Needless to say I have been using my debit as a credit card for the last three years. | ||
| Hootowl |
I don't like using debit as credit, because that credit card number is attached to my checking account. In the case of fraud, sure you're covered, but the money is still gone from your account until the bank finishes their investigation. Screw that. Get a credit card, pay it off every month. I went so far as to put a daily transaction limit of $1 on my debit/check card, since my bank doesn't issue ATM cards that are not also VISA cards. |
