its only wednesday....(long and language)

[Slayer]

The same thing happens with the credit side.

Honestly, if you don't want a hold, then just go in and prepay a specific amount. It's not rocket science.

^-.-^

It sounds like that's what I'll need to do from now on when I go to the States. It's pretty scary to think that $125 can be held on my card down there. Like I said earlier, I live in Canada (Montreal, to be specific) and you tell the pump what to authorize. Not the other way around.

At the new Costco gas bar here in Freddy (New Brunswick.ca ), it will ask you if you want to preauthorize up to 125$, and I assume put that hold in place.

I've never said no to it when I've pumped gas for my parents (no car of my own), but I suspect if you say no, you'd be able to enter the amount you wanted to pump and go from there.

*nods* That's exactly it. You can enter your own amount. When I first pumped gas at costco (many years ago) and I saw that, I remember going 'pfft, no way' and hitting no, lol.




I'm not usually living paycheck to paycheck, but I am when it's around tax time (school, property, etc). If $125 got tied up for a couple/few days when I only needed $40 of gas, I'd be freaking out.

[mhkohne]

Can I ask? If the hold is $125 and the customer has, say, $50 in his account, will the hold accrue an ovrdraft fee? Just wondering in case I ever use my debit card to get gas. (I almost always use my gas credit card, so I was unaware of this hold deal).

Bg: up until the layoff a month ago, I used to write this kind of software.

When doing a hold, the hold can complete for less than the requested 125. In that case, the pump will limit you to the authorized amount.

As to hold times: this is, I think, the payment processor's fault. The pay at pump system will complete the transaction with the payment processor as soon as it can (daily at worst, details depend on network, newer stuff completes only minutes after you finish pumping). The problem is that the payment processor doesn't communicate the completion to the bank in real time like it does the auth. I'm not sure if there's a business reason for that, or if they just don't care enough to make that work faster.

[dalesys]

... if they just don't care enough to make that work faster.

The payment processor, as a sockpuppet of the bank, gollylags around so the bank can keep the money. Scrooge McDuckPlucker lives! Ia! Quafhtackin!

[rageaholic]

SC: do you not understand english? do you understand what I said?

Sounds like the guy my brother worked for a month ago. He would get angry because no one could understand his thick accent and would say something along those lines.

What a jerk.

[TheSHAD0W]

It doesn't excuse the SC from raving at you, but the credit card companies really ought to implement a method for quickly releasing those holds, once you're finished pumping gas. While ideally you ought to keep a few hundred in leeway clear on your credit line, times are tough and even non-SCs will sometimes run close to the limit. But how do you make a cephaloplegic understand that there's nothing you can do to help?

[Andara Bledin]

The payment processor, as a sockpuppet of the bank, gollylags around so the bank can keep the money. Scrooge McDuckPlucker lives! Ia! Quafhtackin!

The bank itself never sees this money. It only gets the funds that were transferred with the final charge. Hell, not even the processor gets this money; it's still the property of the account holder. It's just not available for use during the time it's in hold.

It doesn't excuse the SC from raving at you, but the credit card companies really ought to implement a method for quickly releasing those holds, once you're finished pumping gas.

Again, it's not the banks that decided when the hold is released. They keep it in place until the processor gives them the all clear to release it either by completing the charge or canceling the hold, and most of those don't actually finalize (despite the money being listed as out of your account) until close of business for that day in the location where the processor operates.

^-.-^

[TheSHAD0W]

Again, it's not the banks that decided when the hold is released. They keep it in place until the processor gives them the all clear to release it either by completing the charge or canceling the hold, and most of those don't actually finalize (despite the money being listed as out of your account) until close of business for that day in the location where the processor operates.

I'm aware of that, but in this era of computers (almost) all things are possible. It would ultimately be up to the main card network companies (Mastercard Inc, Visa, etc) to add such capability to their standards, where the computerized pump would (1) request a hold; (2) receive an approval along with an approval code; (3) allow gas to be pumped; (4) once dispensing is complete, contact the processor again with the charge amount and the received approval code attached. The processor would then be able to match the approval code with the previously issued hold and cancel it, while placing a charge for the actual amount.

So far as I know this capability does not currently exist. It is, however, IMO desirable and I'm surprised it hasn't already been implemented.