i have seen at truck stops that diesel is cheaper by .30$ if you pay cash.
now at a lot of the gas stations here at home they are charging anywhere from same price to .30$ cheaper if you pay with cash instead of credit.

is this legal? i hate carrying cash on me but i guess i am gonna start now.

 

30 cents or 3 cents cheaper? Usually it's around 3 cents. They started doing that back when fuel spiked to $1 since credit card companies charge 2% - 3% of the purchase price as a transaction fee so they could recover the 3 cents it cost them.

With fuel in the $4 range the discount should be bigger, but I haven't seen it yet. If you can save 30 cents I'd go for it.

 

I can remember way back when credit cards were just starting to become popular. Most people didn't have one. Every station charged a cash price and a credit price. They were passing the credit card fee's on to the customer.

Eventually, some smart station owners decided they could get more customers if they stopped doing that, so they just charged everyone enough to cover the card fee's of the card customers. After a while everyone followed suit.

It seems to make good business sense now to offer people a cheaper price if possible, and let the credit customers foot all of the card fee's if they want to use one.

I pretty much use my debit card for everything and carry little cash. However if it were even 10 cents per gallon on a fill up, it would make sense to drop by the bank, get cash from the ATM and go fill up. If it were 30 cents per gallon, it would be more than worth it.

 

yes .30 cents cheaper

 

I hope that trend picks up everywhere. I'd love to save a $Five spot on each fill up!

 

I think we should all use credit cards to buy gas. Then when the bill comes in we all agree not to pay

 

To answer your question of course it is legal.

 

Ancient history, oil companies used to have their own charge cards and stations did not take bank-issued cards. In fact, we paid the Shell driver for our gas with Shell credit card slips. I used to carry Shell, Texaco and Chevron cards.

Now, the oil companies dont even have in-house credit cards, but affiliated Chase Mastercard or whatever. I use a Discover card that has 5 percent rebate on gasoline, so that works out to 19 cents a gallon today. ARCO (cash only) is cheaper by about ten cents a gallon, so I am still ahead using the card. Valero is the only one so far that I have seen charging extra for credit cards.

Jim

 

Legal? Yes... there is no "law" concerning it.

Against the credit card merchant policies? Yes. Visa, Mastercard, Amex, etc., do not allow merchants to charge more for credit purchases than they do for cash purchases (because it discourages people from using their product, the cards). While some companies may be doing this, they are risking their merchant account by doing.

 

Nice thought in theroy to "git 'em back" but, really bad advice since refusal to pay can have a negitive impact on all your credit card rates. Not to mention your credit rating.