Limits at the Pump

It's all about liability. You're not signing for anything - you're just sticking a card into a pump. Credit card companies will accept purchases that aren't signed for (convenience charges) up to a maximum dollar amount - usually $50. Most gas pumps are automatically set to a $50 limit to comply with the credit card companies. If the charge was over $50 and it wasn't signed for, you could claim it wasn't you and the gas station would have to bite the charge. Oh, the things you learn as a convenience store manager...

Trade your SUV for a Prius! (That is, get on the waiting list now and you might get one in 2006...)

What Bilerico says makes sense. Back in my salad days as a gas station c-store jerk, the pumps certainly went higher. This was before automated pumps, mind you. Don't panic ;)

I can understand the $50 liability limit, my point is that if I can so easily hit this limit; isn't the limit obsolete? I'm sure that 20 years ago when the credit card companies envisioned this convenience charge limit they never pictured some dude not being able to get a full tank of gas because of it.

And yes, I would love to get my hands on a Prius. The gas savings alone would almost make a car payment (currently getting 13 miles/gal).

About the Prius - get my girlfriend to comment, because she's tried to worked out the math on getting one, and has discovered that it isn't cost effective to get one, much as she wants it.

I don't have much of a problem with gas being so expensive right now.

I see it as motivation to get the market to move over to safer, renewable fuels, which is something we will experience at some point.

If you think gas is expensive now, just wait till supply gets really tight. Gas will be even more expensive then.

Peak Oil, anyone? Fuel supplies will only get more constricted as demand explodes in non-G8 countries and new supplies get harder and more expensive to find.

I hope higher fuel costs create higher demand for public transportation. It would be nice to have other options for my commute from Shelbyville.

Peak oil is a scary notion. Here's an excellent site that describes the issue and links to a lot of other sources: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I worked for a gas station back in 1987. Gas was a lot cheaper back then. It was around $1 per gallon. We had the mechanical odometer style pumps which had a different problem. It was possible to "flip" them over.

I had one person who was driving a big dump truck at a self service pump. He was able to flip the dollar amount from $99.99 to $0.00 and then ended on $1.22. Luckily the person was honest and let me know what happened.

Howdy just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know
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