In article ,
Travis Marlatte wrote:
What you describe is a typical scenario. What Jay was responding to was the
hold of just one dollar.

The only reason I can think of is that they are trying to verify the card
but be nice and not put a large pre-auth on the card. Sounds like a win-win
to me.

The gas station pre-auth of a buck is just to verify the card if
good. They probably do enough transactions when the occasional
full transaction is declined for being over the limit, it isn't a
huge deal. Some of the local gas stations have started asking for
zip code as a verification that the card isn't stolen, since the
pay at the pump is a good way to verify if a stolen card is good[1].

John
[1] I've been called by my credit card company several times after
filling up at a pay at the pump, and then making a large purchase
just after that (gas, then groceries).
--
John Clear - http://www.clear-prop.org/