Credit card limits when filling up the tank

msmith1199 wrote:
When you think about these limits, most of them are kind of dumb because you can swipe the same card multiple times. What's the purpose in a limit if you can just keeping swiping the same card? I have never been asked to use a different card or had the card shut down. Just swipe it three or four times and it just keeps going. If I was using a stolen card what would have been saved by having a limit versus swiping in four times?

There's actually a big difference to the station owner. The card issuer sets a limit on how much they will reimburse the station when a fraudulent transaction takes place at the pump. The station owners typically set the card per swipe limit to that same amount. Since they are reimbursed on a per transaction basis, if a bad card is swiped three times because of a $75 limit on a $225 total sale, they get fully reimbursed the $225 in fraudulent charges at $75 per transaction. If the same card was allowed to only swipe once for that $225 sale, they would only be reimbursed $75 for the one transaction. and the remaining $150 would come out of their pocket.