Last night Stephanie, Emma, Stephanie’s dad, and myself were traveling to Florida to visit Stephanie’s sister. Along the way, we stopped for gas twice: once in South Carolina and once in Georgia. Both times, it took far too long for no good reason. At the first gas station, for some reason, you have to go inside and prepay for gas, even if you are paying at the pump. This makes no sense. The only reason to require someone to go inside and prepay is if they are paying cash, because you are afraid they will drive away. When you pay at the pump, the gas station has already ensured that you have enough funds on your credit card to cover the gas. The second time we stopped, an attendant walked up to us after we pulled up beside a pump and said they were changing shifts inside and the pumps were going to be off for about ten-to-fifteen minutes. (Also, he was smoking at the time.) Really? It takes fifteen minutes to balance the books when you change shifts?? And again, we were paying at the pump, which means we didn’t need to pay the guy at the register anything, so why couldn’t they at least leave the pumps open for people paying there?
Anyway, I just thought I’d share. Enjoy your Independence Day everyone!
July 4, 10:52 pm
While I agree, that is dumb, I’m also pretty sure that when you use a credit card at the pump they only check to make sure your card is valid. They don’t make sure that there are enough funds. This is part of the reason for it only allowing you to pump like 100 bucks at a time or whatever. The gas station is responsible for paying the gas company for the gas in the event you do drive off.
July 5, 9:15 pm
Nope, they reserve funds (I guess $100 if that’s the most you can pump at one time). If your card had less than $100 available credit, it wouldn’t let you pump.