Gas stations and new credit card hold on funds

I am not sure if this is everywhere yet but it soon will be so I'm going to warn you BEFORE it happens to you. I found out the fun way! It wasn't so fun. :(

A lot of gas stations are now doing a $25-$75 hold on credit card funds when you use your card at the gas stations. WHY? They are doing this because their machine will say that the funds are accepted and going to them, when they send the credit card purchases for the day to their company they are finding out that they are denied charges. So they have no started to add money onto your gas pump total to make sure they get their money.

The $25 to $75 is held from 1-3 days and then put back on your credit card. So when you go to use your card if you had $40 on there and only put $10 in gas they will take the extra $30 to hold to make sure that the payment goes through. You won't know until you go to use your card again at another store and its denied for your purchase or unless you ask the gas station if this is their policy. I have had this happen to me 3 times now in different areas and I have to say I am NOT a happy camper when they do this. They should have to put signs on the pumps that they do this so that customers do not get a surprise when they go to purchase something else.

So to save yourself the headache, you can ask before pumping or you can pay cash so that you will not have to worry about this when you go to the next store. There are more and more gas stations that are doing this so I did want to alert you to this before you think you have money and find out that its on hold for 1-3 or more days.