"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
I haven't seen such a thing in decades and I've lived and travelled
through many states. I remember it briefly in the early eighties and
the stations allowed you to avoid it by using "their" credit card and
I had a bunch of gas cards as a result. I terminated all of them when
they went back to taking VISA/MC for the same price. Most of the
OIL cards now are logo'd VISA/MC/AMEX cards now anyhow.

When Debit cards came out a few years back, many merchants were charging
about 25 cents for DEBIT transactions until it was widely pointed out that a
debit transaction cost much less (one cent) than processing a paper check.

The AM/PM gas stations (ARCO) around here kept the practice in place for
about two years after the other merchants went to doing it free. I stopped
going to those stations and don't know if they STILL do it.