Debit/Credit card question

[jttpwalsh]

Never use a debit card for gasoline, car rental, or hotel stays. The fine print in either the card, or merchant agreement allows the merchant to put a clamp on your funds, over and above the actual charge, and release the hold at their convenience - up to 10 days, some times. It stinks, but you enter into a voluntary agreement, whether you realize it, or not. I used to be in the industry. Thanks.

[morphing libertarian]

Not contacting anybody.

I don’t really care about this issue except to point out that the problem could be easily solved.

Good luck.

[jimt]

Well, let’s never change “it’s just the way it is.”

C'mon, as a libertarian (and formerly a Libertarian) I say contracts between consenting parties should not be in the purview of the goobermint unless they involve theft, force or fraud.

If you sign up with a bank that hoses you and admits it in writing, more fool you. If there's any question about what a seller's going to charge for using your debit card, ask.

It goes the other way too. I had a bank manager tell me that the bank processing my $93 paper check to the phone company for $930 was my problem - and that I should take it up with the phone company as they electronically processed their own payments.

My loud reply, in the middle of a busy lobby, was "Ma'am, I have a checking account with this bank. NOT with the phone company. YOU are responsible for improper processing of my clearly written check."

She folded. I got the money back immediately.

I'm hip to the hold thing. It rarely happens to me, as I frequent the same sellers and put large charges on my debit card.

A polite vendor will volunteer the amount of hold before it happens. Enterprise told me about, and immediately refunded, the $50 they put on for a two day rental.

I went into it with my eyes open.

[aft_lizard]

So why is it then that I can have different holds at different gas stations with the same card? Circle K is 40, while at Quik Trip its one dollar while at Chevron its 75? Furthermore my bank always tells me its the store putting the hold and not them.

[Gabz]

I didn’t make any mention of whether banks or stores do it. I do know that in the paperwork for my husband’s Western Union issued debit card it states there can be a up to a $75 hold for using it at the pump - which is why we don’t pay at the pump.

[morphing libertarian]

I didn’t say anything about government

I pointed out how the computer system would work better for client service.

Biz can take it or leave it.

Is that libertarian enough for you?

[SendShaqtoIraq]

nope

[Clinging Bitterly]

It doesn't matter, the purchase transaction was activated and as it has already been said a hundred times, the actual sale amount would not be known for a while. The final sales go through later in batches by way of whatever mechanism the station's charge processing company uses.

A couple years ago we were driving back to NM from Oregon and I stopped at a station near Tonopah NV and just as I was starting to fill up all of the station's pumps quit. I got just a squirt of fuel if any. So I went to the next station down the road and filled up there. Later on we stopped at a Subway in Las Vegas to get lunch and my card was declined.

Now, it is good to have a small local bank. I called and talked to a human person and they got it fixed up lickety split. The two gas station stops within a short time frame triggered a hold for a possible stolen card because as far as the bank knew my card had been used to purchase two tanks of fuel at two different stations within ten minutes and within a mile of each other. Confirming my identity and that I was indeed at those two stations cleared it up and in fact they canceled the hold on money from the first station on my word that I received only a small amount of fuel there and the rest of the trip was fine.

(But for stubborn fog completely spoiling our side trip to the Grand Canyon.)