wnjj wrote:
I believe the retailer limits the amount and here's one reason they might:
When you buy gas, your card is pre-authorized for the "limit" amount. This is because once the gas is pumped they can't get it back if your card doesn't let the charge through. So your card is charged say, $100 until pumping is done and then it's modified to the actual total. If you raise the limit too high, some customers don't have enough balance left on their account to get any gas, even if they only want $5 worth.
exactly. And the signs at the local fred meyer make this statement and go on to state that depending on the credit card it may take several days for the limit amount to be removed and replaced with the actual amount. And they have a different limit for debit vs credit cards.
Stations don't want to have a limit that doesn't authorize everyone and they don't want a limit that limits anyones purchase. But they can't do both, so they come up with a compromise amount that hopefully minimizes both cases.
In most cases the pre authorized amount will be removed the same business day. If you go online to your account as you are filling up or right after and the account is doing real time data you will see the pre authorized amount being posted against your account.
Many stations also post that if you think you will go over the limit, go inside and prepay or say how much you want to fill and they will run the card inside, in which case they run the card with the amount requested then adjust when your done.
And gas stations are NOT the only merchants who will do a pre authorize for more than the purchase. Restaurants are another one. they will preautorize for you meal AND expected tip amount, then after it is approved and you add any tip, they submit the actual amount.
What I have also found is that some cards, if you have a high credit limit and low balance, rather than showing the full 100 or whatever the station says, will just show 1.00 then it will go away.
I suspect since the know the SIC code for a gas station, have that set up for some accounts. They may do the same thing for other preauthorizations if it is a SIC code that typically has that process.
