Unfiltered Story #217769

At the gas station where I work, if you use your card at the pump, it holds $100 until you complete your transaction, and only actually charges you when you finish filling and put the pump back.

Inside the store, you can set how much you’re willing to pay for, and almost no one goes that high unless they’ve a truck or van to fill. The only other thing that makes these transactions… interesting is that many of our customers speak Spanish and very little English, while I speak English, and only a little Spanish.

Nearly every shift I work I have at least one person come in, asking for their change (from a card transaction for gas). “Change on pump #?”

(me, frowning. The register beeps at me when change is owed a customer. If it doesn’t beep, they aren’t owed cash.) “On pump #?” They nod. I print a new receipt for pump #, and sure enough, it was paid for by card. Smiling, I hand it to them. If they still look confused or ask for their change again, I tell them, “It only charges after you complete filling. You set a limit of how much you’d spend on gas, but you are only paying for what you pumped.”

I get this also with those fluent in English, too. Even after I warn them how it works before they go out to pump their gas, even offering to print them a new receipt when they finish if they like.