I drive a 1994 Ford pickup. It has two 18-gallon gas tanks, and with gas in Tucson at 2.85 cents per gallon (yes, I know it’s a lot more elsewhere in the States, never mind Europe, so spare me already), it takes more than a C-note to fill it up.
There are a lot of trucks like mine on the road, many of them purchased second-hand by independent contractors, construction workers, and yard-service guys, who drive them to make a living.
Here’s my beef: gas stations that still set their pumps to limit debit card gas purchases to $50. They had the same limit five or six years ago, when $50 would have done the trick. Why didn’t they adjust the cutoff limit when gas prices started going up?
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but gas stations with cutoff limits on debit card purchases tend to be those in the poorer parts of town, exactly where people who drive trucks like mine go to buy gas. How is a blue collar debit card different from a white collar debit card?
Maybe I don’t understand how these things work, but every debit card I’ve ever seen has a MasterCard or Visa logo on it, which means to me that the gas station’s going to get its money no matter what. Either your debit card purchase is guaranteed by the credit card company that backs up your debit card, or the debit card itself won’t allow you to spend more than you have in your account, right?
So why impose a limit on debit card purchases? And why only on the wrong side of the tracks? Is it just to hassle working-class people, or is there some legitimate reason I don’t know about?
Previous entry in this thread: here.