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Gas Stations: Use Cash Not Plastic

Gas Stations: Use Cash Not Plastic - Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 6:08PM EST

Reported by: Jeff Chirico
Thursday, Jun 19, 2008 @ 06:08pm EST
PITTSTON, LUZERNE COUNTY --Put away the plastic! That's what some gas stations are asking you to do these days. They’re losing money because the fees they pay to process your credit card are going up. Consumer reporter Jeff Chirico here with how you can save green by using green.

Some stations across the country are refusing to accept credit cards at all. Now we don't know of any stations that have gone that far around here but some are offering a dime discount if you use cash.

Pay with cash at Gas Guy in Pittston, and you shell out $3.99 a gallon. Whip out the card, and you're forking over a dime more --$4.09.

Gary Bradbury/Pittston "I think it's unfair to do that to the consumer. Attendant Corey Wasko takes the heat.

Corey Wasko/Attendant "People have gotten upset. Called you names." Wasko says cash customers get discounts because the fees the Williams Street business pays to process credit cards keeps rising...eating in to their already small profit. “When you're making ten cents a gallon its not an easy thing to swallow."

Here's how it works. If you buy ten gallons-- that's forty bucks. The gas station makes about a dollar 20. That's twelve cents on a gallon. But if you use a credit card, the station pays a transaction fee of 2 to 4 percent of the sale price. That's at least about 80 cents...leaving the station with 40 cents on your 40 buck buy. Buy ten dollars in gas, like more of us are, and the station doesn't make any money.

Some customers say they'll just carry cash.

Amber Chesniak/Pittston "Especially with an SUV the ten cents will add up for how much gas I put in. It would be a lot better to use cash."

Others aren't as understanding. "I use credit card and so someplace else. "

“There's always a few that no matter how much you try to explain don't want to hear it, scurry on up the road." Corey says the mom and pop shop could have raised prices for everyone but that would push customers away ---and create another casualty of the gas price crisis.

Retailers are lobbying Congress to change the system. They argue the cost of processing credit card transactions remains the same so they shouldn't have to pay more. In the meantime, use your debit card and type in your pin. And you can save.
 


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