Seems like every place around me you have to go in the gas station to pre pay the diesel pumps. There are no pay at the pump options. Is this pretty common with diesel fuel?

 

Must be your location. I haven't had to go inside a gas station to prepay in over 20 years. Card readers at the pumps everywhere.

 

Agree. I haven't been to a "pay inside" gas pump in a couple of decades. The couple of times that the card reader at the pump has been broken I just head down the road to the next place.

 

What state are you in? I haven't seen a pump without a card reader in over 25 years. The exception being commercial pumps which have a card reader on the island so you can pay for two pumps at a time for filling both tanks.

 

I'm in middle indiana. I've been trying to go to only places that sell a large amount of diesel. Must just be locations closer to me.

 

I've been to a couple that required pre-pay. It sucked. Upon advice on this forum I got the Flying J/Pilot credit card through the Good Sam Club. No more pre-pay!! And I get a discount on fuel on top of the cash price.

 

The only few times I've had to pre pay for on road diesel is if the fuel station I stopped at has credit card issues at the pump.

 

I don't run into prepay anywhere in MA/NH/ME.

 

The big truck stops often require you come in to pay because their customers often take 250 gallons and exceed the credit card limits. So by having the customer come in and getting the card pre-approved they can "Fill Up" and not be stopping and restarting the pump every $100

 

 

When I was a gas jockey, decades ago, if we filled someone's tank and their card got declined after fill up, we would call the police to come but they did not have the ability to make someone pay so our shift just "ate it".
Prepaid does get rid of that.

 

This is the only time I've ever seen a diesel pump that didn't let you pay at the pump. The commercial truck pumps usually require you to go inside and leave a card since you're buying several hundred dollars worth of fuel at once.

Every small diesel pump always has a card swiper on the pump everywhere I've been.

 

As I recall, if I wanted the cash price I had to pay up front. That was a hassle on multiple fronts. 1. Carrying that much cash. 2. Making two trips to the cashier because I never knew exactly how many gallons it would take so I always put down more cash that expected.

 

I've run across the prepay only on trips at either turnpike service plaza's or truck stops where I have to go when towing the 5er. The pay at the pump are a pain because unless I am just around half a tank then the authorized amount at the pump is never enough to fill up the tank.
The prepay is mainly due to fraud issues with the mag stripe cards, which most stations around me still use. I am hoping as more and more stations go to the chip card then they may up the authorized amount.