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At the Pump And Past The Limit
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Discover has also increased its limit to $75 from $50. MasterCard has had a $75 limit for several years.
Stations "are faced with two bad options -- allow the pump to go beyond $75 and risk not getting paid . . . or take a customer from frustrated [with gas prices] to outright anger," Lenard said.
Even when station owners want to take on more risk, limits are generally set by the oil companies rather than by the stations themselves. Sunoco limits the transactions to $75 if customers are using Visa or MasterCard. Chevron and Exxon Mobil's limits are either $75 or $100, depending on the credit card used. East of the Rocky Mountains, BP sets a pay-at-the-pump limit of $100, although a spokesman said some stations may choose to set higher limits.
In response to complaints over the payment restrictions, a few individually owned stations have increased their limits.
Gezahegne Daba, manager of a Hess station on the corner of New York and Montana avenues in Northeast Washington, said his station recently raised the pay-at-the-pump limit to $100 after a rash of consumer complaints.
Across the street, Thomas Goode paid an additional 2 cents per gallon to fill up the Chevy Astro van he used for work at a Shell station. A few months earlier, he had been using the Hess station, but it would cut him off at $50. After stopping at Shell one day, he discovered the station had a higher limit for his corporate card. "After I pumped the gas and I found out there wasn't a $50 limit on it, I just kept" going there, he said.
A Gaithersburg Liberty station recently negotiated to increase its limits to $75 from $50, though some cards still cut off at $50. The station also offers customers a 5-cent per gallon discount if they pay cash.
Many customers are taking the deal.
"I used to fill up with a credit card, but now I fill up with cash because it's cheaper," said Kevork Araklian, who said he expected his weekly gas bill for his 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe to reach $220 this week. He doesn't mind paying inside. "It just takes two seconds," he said.
A handful of area stations are avoiding the problem of interchange fees and charge backs altogether by accepting only cash. Filling up at a cash-only Freestate station in Rockville, Ann Seltz says she used to find paying with cash irritating until the fuel bill for her Audi A4, which should take only premium gasoline, got so expensive. "Now I go wherever's cheapest," she said.
