Debit fees are 21 cents per transaction plus other costs, with a maximum charge of 24 cents for the transaction. Debit: Roughly 2.4 cents per gallon* in additional expenses.Here are the typical fees assessed to retailers for a 10-gallon fill-up, assuming the price is $3 per gallon. Processing payments by plastic carry significantly higher costs than cash payments and the discounts are a way for retailers to reward customers who help reduce operating costs. With the overwhelming percentage of payments at the pump by plastic, there are incentives for offering discounts to customers who pay by cash. (Note: Customers are still assessed the full amount if the retailer is denied payment in this situation, but the bank issuing the credit card keeps the money.)īoth Visa and Mastercard announced in early April that they would increase their limits to $175. Retailers who choose this option risk having the charge denied by the bank (known as “Reason Code 96”), even if the card is not fraudulent, and lose getting credited for the entire amount of the sale. The other option is to allow customers to exceed this authorization limit. Neither option is convenient for customers who are already frustrated by high gas prices. One choice is to adhere to this authorization limit, recognizing that it could likely create frustration for some consumers who can’t get the amount of fuel that they want unless they either begin another transaction and reinsert their cards or go inside and authorize the payment there. This situation forces retailers to select one of two bad options. The credit card companies say that the limit is set to minimize fraud, but these credit card policies don’t recognize today’s environment when it has become much easier to hit that limit with the higher prices and with vehicles that have larger gas tanks, especially RVs. This limit is based on Visa’s and Mastercard’s operating rules that dictate that retailers who exceed a predetermined limit for fueling risk not getting paid for the entire transaction. Most retailers have authorization limits on the dollar amount of fuel that can be pumped for any one transaction, usually $75. Here’s some common topics related to payment cards and fueling. But there is a lot of complexity behind the scenes related to payments and how paying by cash, credit or debit affects the refueling experience. In early 2020, 77% of drivers paid by plastic (44% by credit and 33% by debit card) but by May 2020, when coronavirus-related concerns emerged and consumers sought to minimize personal contact, a whopping 86% of fuel customers paid by plastic.Īn average fill-up takes 3 to 5 minutes and is relatively simple. With nearly 40 million Americans refueling their cars every day, there’s a good chance they’re paying with a debit or credit card.
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