I saw this story this morning on KREX-TV's website and it gave me a little pause. One of those stations is one I frequent and I had to think if I ever used the pay at the pump thing. I haven't so I'm safe.
This allows me to "rant" about couple of these convenience things that are available that I don't feel to comfortable with, the first is the pay at the pump thing. I hate the idea of the general public having access to the credit card machine when a business is closed, (see above story). Also I have used the pay at the pump thing a few times and on occasion the gas station will take out and "hold" a large sum of funds to ensure that the credit card will not "bounce". Let's say, you buy $30 in fuel the station may "hold" from 100 to 200 bucks until your transaction is posted. I usually don't have an extra couple hundred bucks waiting until a credit card transaction is posted. If you actually make it indoors, stand in line, and pay for your fuel with a human processing the card, the store will not "hold" the additional funds.
My second rant is about drive through restaurants. Drive through restaurants, drive me crazy. First off most time the restaurant can only help one customer at a time in the drive through, so you end up "in line" for a long time, all the time wasting my gas. Then once you get the food and get to your destination to eat it, the order is almost always wrong. Grrr!
Over the years working in mining, maintenance and listening to loud music, I have pretty much ruined my hearing and when I am in the drive through I usually cannot hear the person taking the order either, so I get frustrated. You add that with all the people in your car telling you what they want all at one time, I want to explode.
So, I go inside where I can see the people I'm talking to, I can check the order before I leave, and the people traveling with me can tell their order to trained restaurant employee and not me. Most times when I go into the restaurant I can get my order quicker than the people in the drive through line anyway.
My word of advice is: Go inside for everything. It will not hurt you to take a little walk (especially since you are eating fast food) and you will get better service in the long run. Plus you don't have the added chance of someone stealing your credit card information.
I couldn't agree more, for every reason given; they do well to get the order right even if it is face-to-face. I didn't realize the part about paying at the pump holding more than the purchase price; THANKS!
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