[hurley_108]

WDHIII WDHIII:

The headline may be misleading but I think the gist of the story is the fact that not many people know this.....

$1:

Donnelly said she was unaware that gas companies are allowed to put a $100 hold on patrons' credit cards if they are only buying a small amount of gas.

considering that Grants law only took effect on Feb 1st.

ALSO gotta wonder WHY you would vote DOWN a story....... then comment on it

Grant's law or not, it works the same way here in Alberta. Everyone who's paid for gas with a card at the machine has found this out at some point, the only difference is now there are a lot of people learning it all at once.

I voted it down because it's a silly story, with a bad headline. I wanted to make that explicitly clear, so I commented on it. Is that a problem for you?

[hurley_108]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

It's illegal in California for most firms to put a hold on funds in advance of purchases. That's because credit card companies tend to charge interest and fees against funds put on hold even though the credit card user never actually has used those funds.

Well then the practice of charging interest on pre-authorizations should be made illegal then, not a blanket ban on pre-auth's themselves. If you've got $1 left on your credit card and pump in $50 worth of gas and then split, someone's out $49. This is just a way of making sure you can pay for what you put in. I don't see a problem with that.

$1:

The true injustice here is that everyone gets punished because some idiot murdered an equally idiotic gas station attendant who thought that sacrficing his life for the cost of a tank of gas was worth it.

This is true.

[hurley_108]

usababe usababe:

yeah, but with the hotel you are made aware of the hold at the time of reservation....from what the article seemed to say was that many people are unaware of the hold and that some do make a hold, some don't....shouldn't people have the option of informed consent?

It's standard practice everywhere where there's a delay between using a service and then paying for it. When you phone in pizza delivery and they ask for your card number, they do this by punching it into their machine. When you pay for your food at the restaurant, the slip they bring you is a pre-auth slip. They're making sure you can pay for it before they let you walk out the door.

How's the gas station to get the gas back out of your car if you fill up and then your card is declined?

I agree the hold should expire the instant the purchase is completed, but seriously this isn't news.

[hurley_108]

WDHIII WDHIII:

$1:

the only difference is now there are a lot of people learning it all at once.

Which would be the whole POINT of this "silly story"......


And if you voted it down and had left it alone then it would have been off the board by now - commenting on it only brought attention to it... kinda counter productive but hey.. whatever floats yur boat.

I voted it down because I don't think CBC should be reporting on it. It's not newsworthy when one person learns how credit cards work, why is it newsworthy when a bunch of people do at the same time?

It's moderately discussion worthy, but not newsworthy. I usually vote on the newsworthiness of a story. Sorry if that offends you.

$1:

BTW dont you have some Hockey scores to vote down too?

Meh, I votes them down when I sees them. I think it's funny how it's prompted you and kitty to preemptively vote them up, though. Gotta fend off that pesky hurley what keeps voting down our hockey stories!

Those ones I don't comment on because they're not even comment worthy. I vote them down because they're redundant - if you want scores just scroll down a little further. I vote them down because I just don't consider every game result remotely that important, and if I did care, I'd go look for it. Or click the links in the scoreboard at the bottom of the page.

[dino_bobba_renno]

The first time I came across this was down in the states. It's nothing but a pain in the ass.