06/28/2026
Because this has come up as a question several times over the last few days, I figured I would address it here.. when you pay at the pump outside with a credit or a debit card sometimes it will put a hold on funds for one night until the transaction clears. This is to ensure that you have enough money in your account to cover the transaction. This happens most often on debit cards because when you tap your card at the pump to pay, it is only authorizing that you have one dollar in your account to start with and of course has no idea how much fuel you’ll be getting so if you only have $10 in your account, but you pump $70 worth of fuel in to your vehicle- obviously that transaction will not go through so that is the reason why a hold is placed on your account to make sure everything is covered
On the transaction.. I do not have control over how much the bank places as a hold on your account. Every bank is different. Every card is different and it is something that is negotiated at a much higher level than my gas station. If you do not want to have a hold placed on your account, all you need to do is pump your fuel and then come inside and pay for it with the cashier- it will only charge you what you’ve purchased, and there will be no hold placed on your account-if you pay inside.
Second, when you pay at the pump some cards have preset limits of the amount they will cover for fraud transactions at the pump and so if tap your card outside and go to Fuel and it cut you off at $100 or $125 those are your bank or your cards pre-set fraud limits that were negotiated with Sinclair and the limits are put in place for fraud protection. This amount was not negotiated at your local bank. This would be national level agreements -every card is different and again I have no control over them. If you do not want a preset spending limit and you know that you need to get more fuel than it’s going to allow all you have to do is come inside to pay after you pump - you can fuel as much as you would like and it will charge you for only that amount and there will be no cut offs if you pay inside the store- paying outside at the pump’s there are more risks for fraud and things like that - not so much in our area but in other areas, and so these agreements were made to protect people, but I know they’re frustrating. They’re just not things that I can change. I have chosen the highest level of a cut off as I can but that’s all I can do..
I know it can be frustrating and I’m very sorry, if you come inside to pay none of these problems will be an issue.
We are in the process of getting upgraded card readers and having some repairs done. They have been taking much longer than initially anticipated, but we do expect these to be done by the end of the summer and I hope that it’s going to make for a much better transaction experience at the pumps, but unfortunately, the holds that are placed for debit cards in particular and spending limit cut offs will still happen for payments at the outside pumps.
As always- I am happy to answer any questions
Thank you!
Jennifer
