The other day (Tuesday, to be exact), I stopped at one of the few places in town that sells diesel to fill up the Jetta. Most diesel pumps are not equipped with a credit card payment unit, and so you have to pay inside. This particular place has a sign on the pump that reads, “Pay before pumping.” These places are always frustrating because if I’m filling up, I can’t be sure how much I’m actually going to put in. I have a pretty good guess, but still it’s the principle.
I go inside and tell the attendant that I’m going to fill up on pump nine, but I don’t know how much it will take. Usually, the attendants at this particular place are okay with that, but this guy is new, it appears. “Well, you’ve got to give me something,” he says. I sigh in frustration and roll my eyes not the most polite thing, but it’s been a long day. I give him my debit card and go out to fill up the car. The pump doesn’t properly shut off when it’s full and I get a fair amount of smelly diesel fuel on my shoes as a result. I’m in an even worse mood.
I go in, pay, and the guy apologizes for the inconvenience. We make some small talk turns out, lots of people have been stealing gas from this place. With gas prices higher than most Americans are used to, I’m not surprised.
Last night, I’m checking our bank account online when I see this.
Or it could be a mistake. The optimist in me hopes it is, but I just don’t know. It was run earlier than my real, authorized payment.
If it was intentional, what was this idiot thinking? That I wouldn’t check my account? That I couldn’t prove I didn’t authorize this payment?
What a pain…
Was this in the “pending” section or the completed transactions section? Some gas stations will do a pre-authorization “hold” before you pump, then charge the actual amount. In a few days, the “pending” charge just disappears because it was never really completed.
It’s a real pain in the neck if you’re living close to the wire (as I was several years ago) — and a real scare if you pay close attention to your transactions online. But it’s not necessarily personal.
Apparently you were right. The funny thing about it is, I called the bank and the corporate office of the service station and no one said anything about this. An individual working at the latter checked through their account records and told me that they had no record of such a transaction.
Why didn’t she just explain what was going on?
It has, as you predicted, since disappeared, but it still leaves me a little uneasy.
(Re: living close to the wire, that’s exactly what we’re doing, though intentionally. We’re trying to live off one salary and save the other. Sometimes it gets close…)