As though consumers were not having a difficult enough time stretching their budgets, something new has been happening that will make it even more difficult for them. Customers who pay for gasoline with their debit cards are beginning to notice some problems with their accounts. Apparently, a number of gas stations have changed how they process your debit payment and it can affect you in several ways.
Ordinarily, when a customer uses a debit card to pay for gasoline, a “hold” of $1.00 was put on the account. This verifies that the account exists and the actual amount is charged to the cardholder either at the end of the business day or on the next day. Payments have been processed in this manner for some time. Now, however, with the cost of gasoline rising so rapidly, gas station owners are becoming concerned that the customer may not have a sufficient balance for him to collect payment from their account. To combat this fear, station owners have begun placing “holds” on accounts in the amount of $75 or $90. These holds can remain on the account for several hours or a few days. It is even possible for the $90 “hold” to continue on your account after the actual purchase amount has already been deducted.
If you purchase $25.00 worth of gas but the “hold” on your account is for $90 and lasts, for example, two days, this may cause checks issued to others to bounce. It can result in your being denied a withdrawal from your account for “insufficient funds”. It also has the potential to activate the “overdraft account” banks like to offer you for free. They are free, of course, only until you use them. Once initiated, they have extremely high fees attached. Most consumers are not aware of the procedure of holding funds, so they will not anticipate a problem if too much money is placed on “hold”. The easiest way to successfully avoid any problems with this procedure is to keep extra funds in your account on a regular basis. With finances getting tighter everyday, this is becoming increasingly more difficult to do. Another option for avoiding this problem is to present your card to an employee of the station and have it processed by using your pin number. This will assure that only the exact amount of your purchase will be charged to your account.
Tags: debit card
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