It's been this way for years with Chevron. I first ran into it at the Chevron station a few years ago outside the Desert Hills Premium Outlets on my way back from PSP to LAX. Result: I've never bought gas at a Chevron again.

Shell does not require it anywhere so far.

d'oh! i've only tried 99999 before and that never works :( i've had to give the credit card to the attendant first for the pump to be activated. i will have to give 00000 a try.

I've run into that a few times in California, so I decided to keep my old Chevron gas card for just that reason. Now that I'm aware of the 00000 option, I will give it a try in a couple of weeks. ^

On a recent road trip from SFO to LA I was kinda bamboozled by the zipcode requirement too, and tried the 90210/00000 solutions, to no avail. Then I realized that the keypad is alpha-numeric, just like a telephone! Thus, my V8W2A1 credit card billing address postcode translated to 889221 and it worked fine at three different gas stations. Hope this helps.
(Seems a crying shame to be making my first flyertalk post about gas stations, but since a big personal pet peeve is having to pay cash at gas stations, I couldn't resist the opportunity)

Welcome to FT CF-DJC!

some Shell stations in CA will randomly select customers to enter the shop to pay even they have entered the correct Zip.

The first time I experienced it I was thinking.. my credit card did not work. I think this practice may propagate to other gas stations. So do not be surprised if "00000" or your translated-postal-code do not work.

I think the zip code thing is up to the credit card company (not the bank or vendor). I know that Visa doesn't accept the 99999 thing but MC and Amex do. It works on Priceline that way.

Yes, this happened to us at the gas stations in LAX and SAN. It seems you can pre-pay the attendant a "deposit" and then put your gas in.

There is no wood pulp in Canadian and US and most other currencies, although they are not woven they are made of "cloth" fibres, the US bills are 25% cotton and 75% linen. That's why you can run a bill though the laundry with little ill effect, try that with most paper.

International address verification systems are a messy business at best.

And yes, with a lot of cc processors 00000 will match a no zipcode available.

I must have been just lucky.

Last month in California, I just inserted my card into the pump at Disneyland, and it worked.

Later at Newport Beach, the same result. Likely I just picked the correct service stations.

The paper used for most banknotes is made from a mix of fibres, including cloth.

The US also adds in other coloured fibres as an anticounterfeiting measure.

Man would that be sweet.

Wish I'd seen this before filling up @ Shell tonight :)

Anybody else had luck with this method? I'm going to try it next month and report back to the board...