I already suggested that but just holding your card will not work for them. They will take a specific amount, load it on the pump when the charge clears and give you the card back tho. Just be sure your car will hold all of it because they may not be willing to refund the difference from the register and they also may not be willing to try to credit the money back on a debit, if that is even possible. It is not like a credit card.
They put a hold on for gas at some places. If you have $20 in your account and pump $30 in gas there would be a problem.
Sure, you do, sort of. When the restaurant runs your card for the bill, the have it approved for a lager amount as you will probably add a tip. They add about 25% and adjust after you sign.
We were going to send them to the out of state grandkids for Xmas, but they charge $5 for a $50 card. They were happy with Amazon cards.
The system is a piece of s*it. It should operate very simply:
You insert your card, the machine checks to see if you have say $100 or whatever a full huge tank would cost on a gas guzzler. If not, it finds out what you do have. That is your limit. The pump switches off after that. Then it charges you that amount hen you've finished fuelling.
Another case where the actual bill is known soon after the estimated/maximum bill.
I wonder if they take 2 days to adjust it, or if they do it a little after the customer leaves the restaurant.
If you go in and prepay it should be that way. At the pump is a different story.
Rental car companies do it to steal money from you. I once rented a car and filled with gas five miles away from the place of return. They charged me 20 Euros for filling the tank. It can't have used much in five miles!
Why do you just use debit cards ? I can not see any advantage except it only lets you spend the money you have. If you can pay off a credit card each month, there are many advantages.
Most of them will give you from one to 5 % back on anything you buy. Seems like the debit cards throw away that small amount, which can amount to several hundred bucks a year. Some even extend the warranties on what you buy.
I found the best way in Europe is to use cash whenever possible. Merchants will often discount considerably for cash. Some hotels will charge in US dollars doing the exchange for their own fee.
That's ridiculous. I was going to give a gift certificate for a sports ticket service once, and they *charged* for the gift certificate. It was too late for me to get anything else, but I never did that again.
About 30 years ago. Ticketron?
You have to look carefully at all the fees and charges with any of those gift cards, prepaid debit cards, etc. Like you say, typically they hit you with an upfront fee right off the bat. Then some charge a monthly sevice fee of a couple bucks, whether you use it or not. They also charge for some transactions, eg at ATMs, etc. STore gift cards like HD, etc typically are good for the full amount and don't charge extra fees, but I'd be careful looking at them too.
My debit card has the ability to authorize payment if you don't have enough cash in your checking account. This is tied to a savings account but you are charged a 'convenience fee' for this feature which I *think* is $12.50.
Hey, these are about this very subject. Thanks for finding them. I didn't think to look on the web, maybe because I can't complain to the people on the web.
This one says pretty much what Wilkinson said. He sounded right to me.
Despite what others here have said, this pretty much says that this doesn't happen with credit cards (except for a one dollar hold), but that doesn't make much sense to me. Just as someone can run out of money in his debit account, one can run out of credit in his credit account. And plenty of people do.
" Oil companies have no idea how much juice you're going to buy before you've finished filling up, so will have your bank freeze funds to cover your purchase." Actually they have a good idea. They know how much you've spent in the past, probably many times in the past. They can even index to the cost of gasoline if they want a little more precision.
And they know exactly 10 minutes later. I don't object to the hold, only to it extending beyond the time the buyer puts the nozzle back on the pump and ends the purchase. (A little longer than the time it takes to fill a tank.)
{Final charge reporting } "can take as long as 72 hours.", but in the first url above, it said federal law limited it to 24 hours. For me it was a bit over 48 or 50.
This one is about skimming card numbers
Do you think the chip-cards will make that a) impossible? b) less likely?
That is a money making opportunity. Most CC will let you go a bit over your limit and they charge you a fee to do it. Epensice load for a few bucks over.
Supposed to help. It generates a one use code that even if copied won't work again.
I eliminated that. I'd rather be denied than spend an extra $12.50.
Yeah, mine has the ability to deny or accept. Thankfully it's not an included feature that I cannot control.
I have gone over my credit limit a few times and all that happened was I got a letter saying they raised my credit limit. I suppose they were thinking if it got high enough I would not pay it off the first month the bill came. They are on auto pay now so it really acts like a debit with the protections you get with a CC and I get cash back.
Correct.. At least that's how "pay at the pump" works here. "pay in advance" or "pay before pumping" in the states may work differently, particularly if the payment machine isn't linked to the pump to shut it off at the amount paid for. Virtually all "pay at the pump" setups here are live connected to the credit card company over the internet at all times and work in "real time" - not "batch processing mode"
Anyone with a debit card on a chequing account who doesn't have overdraft protection is setting themselves up for a pile of grief.
Except at least here in Canada, the technology at gas stations controls the pump making it totally IMPOSSIBLE to pump more than you paid for. Don't know how it works in some of the American backwaters.
Nope, not with the more advanced Canadian banking system. They come to your table with the credit / debit card machine, and you pay the bill, including adding the tip if you want to, and either sign it right there, or in most cases now enter your PIN for the chip-card, and it's all done - virtually instantly.
We don't have a lot of "dine and dash" situations where people leave without paying their bills. In areas where that happens, and in fast food restaurants, you pay before you get your food - and no tips are expected. If you choose to tip, it is usually in cash
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