On Fri, 05 May 2017 09:06:30 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 05/05/2017 4:16 AM, Micky wrote:
...

There's no doubt he was the manager. Not sure if the word "owner" was
understood, even though the counter guy seemed to speak v.good
English. "Owner" is the kind of word that varies in meaning
depending on who's using it.

Well, even if he were, it's a franchise operation. The net is I am
certain he has no say in corporate policy regarding the amount set for
coverage on at-pump sales.

I'm going to go to another of their stations to see if it's the same.

But tomorrow I'm going to call them.

You're right, I'm sure, but if it's only a hold and not a debit, the
bank ought to say that. It ought to alert me that way. Instead it
says
Amount $109.74
Debit/ATM card ending in nnnn
Whe at this brand of gas in this town
When: Date
View details, A link which could go straight to the transaction in
the email but instead just goes to Bank of America, where I have to
page to find the transaction, and where I can't find it by looking for
a matching amount because the amounts don't come close to matching.
And where, when I do find the transaction, the added details are
more about me than about them. It doesn't give the amount of the
charge in the original denomination, It does give the lower amount,
$34.36 and it does say:
Description: CHECKCARD 0410 gas compny& town
and a 23-digit number which I guess is the transaction number
Merchant category: Service Stations (with or without Ancillary
Services)
Merchant category code: 5541
Merchant name: the same as on the email alert.
No reference to a prior hold, 5 minutes earlier, that is now released.

And so, as said, it's a temporary inconvenience that you get the
notification; the actual amount is transitory. _Could_ they reprogram
the 'bot? Sure. Are they going to? Most unlikely. It is, after all,
BOA, about the most worthless outfit going for consumer banking.

They're like a bunch of children.

...

It took me weeks to figure it out, and I suppose the other 100's of
thousands of BOA customers who look at the alerts are also wasting
their time trying to figure it out. The gas station manager seemed
to know about it when he said "You didn't pay that."
...

Doesn't seem that difficult; annoying perhaps, but not difficult. The
monthly statement is the final arbiter and you seem to be "whole" in the
end which is all that really matters to BOA.

Did I say before BOA sucks?

BTW, if you don't want the excessive hold, at least most stations will
set an upper limit on the pump if you ask instead of just the "free-pump
fillup".

I don't speak the language. I'm lucky to have learned how to say
"fill 'er up".

If you aren't insistent on topping-off, just go for what
you're certain can take and that's all the charge will be; the pump will
shut off automagically when gets there.

I still don't speak the language!

When gas prices skyrocketed there were so many driveoffs and card limits
exceeded before the limits were enacted the industry reacted and often
over-reacted as this particular one you've encountered. Here, at least,
with the stabilization in prices and the backing off from the most
extreme, the problem has abated and most, if not all, stations are
pretty reasonable.

Actually, the other chains all cause emails to be sent to me that are
always between 50 and 57 dollars, and I think the level of gas left in
my tank when I fill up has varied more than that. So since this
started I've been suspicious that they're putting that amount on hold
also, so I need to compare those emails with the actual charges.

But my reaction when I saw $110 for gas was that gas would be a major
expense like the airplane ticket and renting the room. (The phone has
only been iirc $40 a month, but I bought the wrong phone. It only has
one of the 2 frequencies used for 3G, so I only get 2G I think. Phone
calls work fine, and I figured I wouldn't really need much data, since
I preloaded maps while still in the US, but I forgot or didn't know
about 3 things.
They have an app when you park on the street or in some lots in a
busy area. You have to register (and my landlady put me on her
account) and when you park, you start the app and say you're parking.
It knows where you are and what the rate is for that location at that
time. Then when you leave you tell it you're leaving. Meter maids
go by and somehow they can quickly check if the car parked in the spot
has signed in to the parking app, and if not they give a ticket. I
got one once because Icouldnt' get the app to work and I think it is
about $25. The app didn't work, I think, because I only have 2G.
When it does work, it takes minutes to go from one screen to the next.
When I sign out and leave the parking place, I can be two blocks away
before it comes back with how much I owe.
Google translate has an app that you can point at a sign, or piece
of paper I suppose, and it will copy it, sent it back to Google
Central, and come back with a translation, but that's only worked for
me one time out of about 7. It usually says it can't do it, and I
think that's because it's 2G.
And once in the car, one of the map program, which I thought I had
dl'd the data for, said "Downloading map, 0%" and zero never got
bigger. Again, I think I was 2G.

So next trip I'll get a phone that corresponds to the cell phone
company's requirements, wherever I'm going. My phone was cheap.
LIsted at 120, on sale for 100, and I found it online for 50, but I've
checked and the 3 features it's lacking aren't necessarily on a 300
dollar phone.

1) a magnetometer, so that compass apps will work, though the roads
wind so much that I haven't used the one compass app I have that
works. Also when the sun is shining and it's not too close to noon, I
go by the sun. Plus the phone maps will tell me where I am, and I've
definitely used that. And they will tell me where someplace I enter
into the phone is and I've used that, but i"m not going to let it tell
me when to turn. I hate that. (For one thing with the radio on it's
hard to hear.) Plus my goal is to learn the roads so I know
where I am without external help.

2) FM radio, though when I'm not in the car, I haven't wanted radio.
Beause I'm not home, there are no programss I know in advance I want
to listen to.

3) I guess the third is the right frequencies, but I fear when I get
all 3 of these, there will be something I have now that I won't get.

BTW, if I haven't mentioned it before, BOA is terrible...find a "real" bank.

Wells Fargo was a possibility until I learned they'd been stealing
from customers, literally stealling and a couple people should have
gone to jail, IMO, by reordering checks to pay the largest ones first
to make the greatest number of checks bounce, so they could collecting
bounced check fees. Just like BOA did and was caught a year ealier,
but did WFargo stop then. Noooo. Not until it was caught.