Rant/ Flying J-Pilot and Visa

Went to fill up at Flying J this morning. Put credit card in and pump took it ok but wouldn't reset the last sell. Tried to cancel it so I could try again but it wouldn't do anything so went inside to tell the clerk her pump wasn't working. She checked and said it accepted the card and should work. I told her not so, so she canceled the card and said go try again. I did and the same thing happened so I went back again and told her to cancel it again and I would go to a different pump. She said she did but when I tried a different pump it said "see cashier". Thought enough of this and left but thought I better check with the bank to see that they hadn't put a hold on the card for trying to run it to many times. The bank told me they hadn't put a hold on it but there was a charge of $151 put on it that the bank declined because they thought it was suspicious. They said I should go back and question Flying J as to what was going on. I did and was told it was a Visa thing, that they charge the $151 as soon as you swipe the card to make sure there is money there. I told the manager I wasn't buying it but she insisted that it was a Visa thing and they had nothing to do with it. I called the bank back and they said they don't do anything like that, that they will charge $1 to the card to make sure it is good but never $151. So I told the manager what they said and she recommended talking to headquarters about it. I called them and he insisted that Visa is the only one that it happens with, that the charge would only remain on the card for 24 hours and then come off. I told him it was a bunch of bull, that the bank said it wasn't so but he stuck to his story. So if your card is close to the limit and you buy $10 of gas, they will bill you for $151 for 24 hours and in the meantime your card might get rejected the next time you use it. The bank by the way was First Premiere which issued the Visa card.

MSD,

Really? I hate surprises like that.

By the way, if you ever have a checkbook stolen, do NOT cancel your account. Get an affidavit of forgery, cancel any overdraft protection you have, and leave a few bucks in the checking account.

Get a new account, new numbers, new checks.

When checks are NSF (insufficient funds), you'll be able to forward notarized copies of that affidavit to the business and not have it hit your credit score.

If you do cancel your checking account, you'll never know where and when the forged checks are, and the businesses can rightfully hit you in the credit score department.

Lousy games at best. Customers have to dig through the manure, while the "services" are not set up to protect the customer.

D.

Hilton either has my card on file or they swipe it and the first indication of a transaction with Hilton that I see on my online statement is "pending" and the amount is always more than the actual bill comes to. It's always corrected down to the right amount when the money is taken from the account. Hilton says they enter an initial higher amount to cover any additional items that may come up such as room service, etc., which I never use, although when staying at the Mayflower in Wash, D.C., I do always ask for the Elliott Spitzer Memorial room "with amenities". (;>))

The credit card company will charge your account for that much because the sale is not final. If you swipe the card at the pump it will stop at that amount also. When its processed it will be for the amount you purchased. If you pump the fuel and take your credit card inside to pay for it, it will be for amount you purchased only.

I believe flying j is already in trouble over shady dealings

All you have to do is not pay at the pump. When you pay at the pump the Credit card company has zero idea if how much you will spend. So they have an average plus a little for fuel transactions. So your pre-approved for $50. That is so the station knows you can pay for your fuel.

So when you ran your card three times that created the potential for the $151 dollar charge. IF you had waited 24 hours or so the amount would have been corrected to the amount you actually purchased.

I hate to tell you this but your bank has nothing to do with the credit card rules and practices. Each card issuer has different rules. So your bank would not have the information you need. You need to call the customer service number on your credit card statement. In this case it would be Visa.

How else can the stations be protected for the amount of fuel you bought????

Example: If your card was at $980 and you have a $1000 limit. You put your card in and it does not create a charge until your done pumping. So you pump $50 of gas. Your card is over the limit and you may not have the money in hand for the balance. So the station is on the spot with you to get PAID!!! Bad situation for all involved.

So the pay at the pump deals create a possible transaction of $50. So if that is approved then you can pump $50 of fuel. IF you want more then you may have to start over.

My one fuel card will only do $150 at some stores. It is doing the same thing. If I am wanting more fuel I have to start different transactions for each $150 worth of fuel.

This not anything new. Credit Cards and Debit cards have been this way for many years. I took a vacation with my first wife in 1993. I took some cash but had the balance of the vacation money in our checking account. So we used our debit card for everything we bought, fuel, hotels, food, etc. On the way home my card was refused at a gas station. I checked my balance at an ATM. It was way off on what should have been there. We worried all the way home that we had been ripped off. At the bank the next morning they showed us how most of the transactions where still in a "pending" mode. So that pay-at-the-pump fuel transaction may be holding $50 up when you only bought $25 worth. The bank assured us that the transactions would clear with just a little time. It took some of them almost a week to reconcile to the actual amounts.

I did not like it but I can understand the reason behind the way they handle the pre-approved transactions.

Flying J got in trouble a few years ago playing the fuel futures market. That is why the are now partially owned by Pilot.

Pilot on the other hand is in some deep doo doo and it goes all the way to the top including the governor of Tennessee.

The last time I filled up at the diesel pump they put 100 gallon of fuel in a 75 gallon tank.I
complained ,but it didn't do any good.I was several hundred miles from home and couldn't stay there all day.

Shell does the same thing. I stopped buying gas from them when I found out.

Thing that bugged me was I didn't pump a penny's worth of gas and they still put $151 on the card. It was swiped 2 times and the 3rd time it was not accepted. The card company has a charge for over limit charges that they will hook you with. Maybe it is done all the time but this is the first time I found it to happen. As far as not paying at the pump it is a pain in the a## to go in to this place to pay at the counter. Slow service with long lines usually so it just more convenient to put the card in and go when done. If you pay with a card at the counter you have to leave it with them and then go back in and get it or guess at the amount you want to get and hope you hit it right or else go back in and wait in line again. My main concern was the amount charged to it without pumping anything. It could have just as easily been an employee trying to use it so I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

This is typically a bigger problem for debit cards than credit cards. Most folks don't run anywhere close to the credit limit on their credit card, but if you have less than a hundred bucks in checking there's a good chance your debit card will be declined, even though you might only be buying 20 bucks worth of gas.

A while back my wife and I bought a airline/hotel package to visit our son in Las Vegas. Once there, I rented a car with my credit card, no problem. We checked into the (prepaid) hotel and they swiped my card again in case we had any room charges. Then we went to the strip to buy show tickets and my card was declined. So I get on the phone with the credit card company. It seems the hotel put a $1 charge on my card to check it out, and the credit card company flagged that as "suspicious" and blocked my card.

asimiler problem happened to me, for about 2 years now my fuel is cash only, i fill up at the same station every time, [ the deli is good] it brings back memories from days gone by too as the clerk recognizes all 6 of my trucks and when i pull up to a pump she will go ahead and just turn it on , i pay later when i get breakfast, not many places today will turn on a gas pump before paying , [ she also knows where the farm is...]

There is a solution for this. Pay cash.

I don't know about this $50 thing. Usually, at least around here, gas pumps cut you off at $75. They charge $1 to your card when you first swipe it to verify that it's valid, not $50.

Two swipes, first swipe charges $1 to validate the card, then puts a charge of $75 in anticipation of your purchase. Second swipe doesn't charge the $1 because it's already validated, and puts another $75 on in anticipation the second purchase. Total: $151.

For me it's usually corrected by the time I get home.

There are just too many "drive-offs" these days for the gas stations to do it any other way. A few crooks ruin it for everyone.

Gas stations gotta get paid otherwise there's no incentive to sell gas! Then what?

Ever try to stuff cash into a gas pump? Doesn't work too well.

A few years back I rode my motorcycle through Canada to Alaska from Mi. Almost everytime I got gas in Canada they would put a lein or whatever you want to call it on my card for 151 bucks. When the real charge came through they would remove the lein. It turned out ok in the end but I watched it close.
I was with a couple of other riders and the same thing was being done to their cards.

Like others have said its not an actual charge, rather you are authorizing a hold on a certain amount of funds until you complete the transaction and the funds clear. Any remainder goes back to your account. you are essentially creating a mini-escrow account.

Usually I use my credit card and there is a $1 place holder that I believe they use to check the credit limit. On a bank card I don't think they can check the balance directly, so they create the "escrow" account. By law I there is a time limit on how many days they can hold your funds until they must return them.

Years ago I stop in a pilot when fuel was 89 cents a gallon I got $91 dollars in a pickup had a large tank in the bed and when I got my bill it had a charge that day and the next day for the same amount went to the station to get it straightened out and they asked me how did they know that I didn't get the exact same amount the next day had to wait for the manager to get freed up and one of the clefts admitted they had a problem that day with everybody that used a credit card that day so amagion had much extra money they took in and they made everybody dispute there credit card which took around 3 weeks they messed up another time so I started going an extra 1/2 mile to a speedway and have never had anything like that happen

Next time you buy fuel if you will go inside and tell them how much you want in gallons. They will preset the pump for that many dollars, and it will automatically shut off at that amount. I do it at Kroger for 200gallon on a regular basis. That alleviates the need to keep restarting the pump ever so many dollars. It will also let you pump to the even gallon for fuel tax purposes.