A Sign of the Times

Purchasing fuel the other day resulted in an interesting surprise. A hand written note affixed to the gas pump was clearly an indication that something was amiss, but what could it possibly be?

Normally, the pump handle would be covered or secured somehow if fuel could not be dispensed and there were similar notes on every single pump at this gas station.

Perhaps there had been some computer glitch somewhere or a communication failure had occurred and these were instruction to pay inside.


A closer look at the note revealed that there was no such problem - debit cards could be used at the pump, but credit cards must be taken inside.

But why?

It seems that if the card reader and associated communication gear could process a debit card transaction outside, a credit card transaction should be no more difficult.



In recent visits to other gas stations it had been noted that more and more fuel sellers now require customers to input their zip code when using credit cards.

At first, put off by this seemingly intrusive collection of more marketing data, their request was ignored, however, the failure of the pump to dispense the needed gasoline without the correct digits caused us to quickly reconsider.

But this station had gone a step further by requiring that each motorist walk inside to present their card to an attendant who then passes it through a card reader and the transaction is ultimately completed with a signature.

How inconvenient!

During this process the attendant was asked why it was that a perfectly good card reader at the pump and fully functioning computer equipment required customers to walk inside.

The slight, tattooed clerk replied, "There's been two much fraud - stolen credit cards. We just disabled it at the pump. And we tried using zip codes, but it's too easy to guess 'em."

Hmmm...

What an ironic twist.

Too much credit in the world causes too much oil consumption making fuel prices rise. Too many $60 dollar fill-ups cause an increase in the use of stolen credit cards to purchase expensive fuel, resulting in credit being made more difficult to use.