Gas Pump Prepay- Code Required

[storewanderer]

I've never seen this before.

I noticed Maverik self checkout now has an option for "prepay fuel." I was curious how it worked so I pressed it. However I was not there for gas and not even parked at a pump. Some box popped up on the screen that I didn't read, and tried to make go away. Nothing ever came up asking me what pump to use, etc. I received the receipt and it said I had prepaid for up to $175 of fuel and to see instructions. A second receipt printed that said "AUTHORIZATION CODE" and it had a 5 digit code and instructions to take that, go to the pump, press the auth code button (never saw that button before but it is there now), and enter the code to turn on the pump to initiate your prepay. And that the code expires if not used within a few minutes.

I went over to a pump and entered the code and then canceled it and the pump printed me a receipt showing 0 fuel used and just the charge for the drink I bought inside the store.

So this is interesting. Typically a fuel prepay involves going inside, telling them a pump number, in some cases telling them what grade of fuel (Speedway and certain Chevrons), etc. Now with this system it appears the way it would work is you go in and tell them you want fuel prepay, and then they would just give you this authorization code to go use at whatever pump.

[Alpha8472]

I think this is a good idea. You can use any pump and choose how much gas you want when at the pump. I was at a Chevron station when the cashier inside accidentally put another customer's prepay onto my pump. I did not realize it at the time, but I used the pump and the other customer ended paying for me.

I went inside, and it was a mess trying to sort it out.

[storewanderer]

I also like it for cash prepays (assuming they do it with cash prepays- I don't know if they do) because of the same reasons. It lets you go to any pump, there is no more trying to figure out what pump number you are on and all of that. It also alleviates the issue of the cashier putting your prepay to the wrong pump (which seems to happen more often than it should).

I have had a couple times where I've done a gas prepay and my prepay went to a different pump and the pump started pumping for someone else.

My favorite was a number of years ago in a rural CA Shell, some customer authorized multiple pumps with his credit card, of course after the third or fourth pump he hit the Shell velocity limit (most fuel systems only allow 2-3 pay at the pumps with the same card over a 24 hour period, but this can be reset if you buy something in-store or do a fuel prepay in store) and the third or fourth pump declined his card he proceeded to go in rudely and tell the cashier all of HER with a rude emphasis pumps were broken because they didn't do anything after he inserted his card. He didn't bother to look at the screen when it said "remove nozzle select fuel type begin fueling" I guess. The cashier snipped right back to him actually multiple of the pumps are ready to begin fueling as the card had authorized then the last pump was declined. The customer argued with the cashier why the pump wasn't asking for his zip code like it is supposed to, saying he was from Los Angeles and knew how gas pumps were supposed to work and HER pumps were all not working right. The cashier then told him he better get outside and press cancel on whatever pumps he had put his card into. Meanwhile other customers were showing up who wanted to use the pumps but luckily they were honest and actually looked at the screens and did not begin fueling.