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Comment by chimpansteve | Hacker News Reader

I've had a driving licence in the UK for 26 years, and have never once paid for my fuel before filling up. This is normal everywhere in Europe at least, to the point where I suspect the US is the outlier

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That used to be normal in the US, nowadays most pumps are automated.

You can fill up 24/7, even if the store is closed.

cries in new jersey

I make it a point when driving through NJ to fill up with gas before crossing into NJ (or making sure I have enough to get through it).

I made the mistake once of needing gas on the NJ Turnpike, stopping at a rest area and having to wait for 45 (yes FORTY FIVE) minutes while the ONE attendant operating both sides of a single pump slowly worked his way through a massive line of agitated motorists. Never Again.

I’ve driven in the US and the UK (among other countries) and haven’t paid before filling up in either. Is this a result of paying with cash or other non-card methods, as pumps in the US seem to require inserting the card first probably as an authorisation?

I also don’t drive that much these days so may be misremembering things. The only issue I had with payments was in a station in a small town in Italy which refused to accept most foreign cards (ant least based on other people around me also struggling) and was the automated no-human type of station so there wasn’t an easy solution.

Putting a card in before pumping is considered "prepay". They'll put a hold on your account to make sure you have the money. There isn't much point to post-pay with cards.

10–15 years ago it was common in the US where you would pull up, hit "pay inside", pump all your gas, then go inside and pay at the register. Now because of theft, if you want to pay with cash, virtually all stations require you to go inside, pay for x gallons of gas, and they'll turn on the pump to give you that much. Which is annoying because unless you're really good at guessing, you can't just fill it up anymore.

When you can pay with card at the pump, the only remaining users for "pay inside" are thieves and the occasional cash-only customer.

Also no surprise they don't want you to pay cash, that means dealing with cash which is expensive.

Employees at the gas station could spend their time selling hot dogs instead :)

Most of the stations around me actually offer a cash discount. When you're dealing with a single-digit margin, that 2.5% CC fee looks pretty tempting. More are trying to push their station cards now though.

Or people from Europe. It’s 50/50 whether an automated station will accept my European card - can’t figure out the pattern there

In my experience this seems to be much less of a problem now with contactless payments, in both directions. US cards that used to require swipe-and-signature or chip-and-signature instead of chip-and-PIN seem to just work in when tapping (at least in the 3-4 countries I’ve traveled in extensively, although contactless isn’t widely accepted in some countries) and cards from a few European countries seem to work with contactless which is finally increasingly widely adopted in the US.

Back around 2008, I recall having problems because my Australian cards would be prompted for a 5-digit zip code. It only happened at gas stations for some reason. The closest we have is 4-digit postcodes, which it wouldn't accept. Eventually, I figured out I could prepend a 0, but I didn't want to trial-and-error that unless it set off a fraud flag with my bank. Probably a good thing it was pre-pay in the cases that didn't work.

Well you can fill it up, but you have to run back in to get your change.

If you have two people one can wait, start it once the other pays, then you both go to the bathroom and pick up the change on the way out.

Well yeah, but it's cold out lol

In France at least, more and more stations require pre-paying at the counter, especially stations in big cities.

Fill, then pay is normal in India too. And AFAIK, all pumps are manually operated. Not seen any automated ones.

It's not uncommon in Latin America, too, at least.

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