This evening, I attempted to buy petrol from a Chevron station in Renton, WA, USA. I put my (Australian) Visa card into the pump and it demanded that I enter my 5-digit ZIP code! Of course, I have no such thing. I tried entering my (4-digit) postcode, but it didn't accept that. Of course, my card has a PIN, which is the proper means of identification for cards, but it didn't give me the option of entering that. I later went to a different Chevron which didn't have this stupid setup.

Does anyone know anything about this? I've never experienced this anywhere before. Is it a Chevron stupidity or just this particular outlet or what?

I've heard about this on another forum. This seems to be limited to Chevron stations (on the US west coast?). Apparently it's an anti-fraud measure to prevent someone with a stolen card from using it at the gas pump (The other forum mentioned that this is a place where stolen cards are frequently used because of the ability to purchase without a signature...)

Did the Chevron station have an option to pay inside? Usually you sign for your purchases inside, so there shouldn't be a zip-code check.

For what it's worth, I tried to use a Visa card at a Hess station in North Carolina twice in succession (my car takes 91 octane and the pump had sold 89 and 93, so I wanted to "blend my own") and an anti-fraud lock kicked in on the second swipe.

PDH



[This message has been edited by pdhenry (edited 09-08-2002).]

Many gas stations in the city of Washington DC require the zip code entry when paying at the pump as well.

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I'm sure it's a supposed anti-fraud measure, but it's a really lame one. If you steal someone's credit card, there's a good chance you can steal something with their address on it, making ZIP code not much better than nothing. They should be requiring a PIN to be entered. (... and they should have been requiring it for years.)

Yeah, there's always the option to go inside. I assume it'd require: go inside, give card to operator, go back to vehicle, refuel, go back inside, get operator to process purchase, go back to vehicle again. It's a big waste of time, so I didn't look into it.

If you go to gas stations in the USA a lot, you could ask visa customer service what to put in for a zipcode when asked. Maybe there is something that will work, who knows.

I did email Chevron customer service a couple of days ago and asked whether there is some way, but they haven't responded as yet.

As it happens (isn't it always the way!), I was in a hurry when this happened to me. If it happens when I've got plenty of spare time, I'll try various things (leading 0, trailing 0, all 0's, all 9's, etc) to see if there's something it may accept. It did occur to me afterwards that if the ZIP code field in the system is a US-specific one, it may be all 0's or all 9's or something for non-US cards. (... or it may be something which can't be entered at all at the pump, such as all spaces, or my postcode with a leading or trailing space or who knows what else.)

Just to reiterate a previous post, this is not exclusively a Chevron issue. In fact, where I live, they have it at a lot more Mobil stations than they do at Chevron.

In France, there are a number of stations which have self-service, 24 hour, pumps specifically marked as "Carte Bleu". They will not take U.S. issued cards and are intended only for French cards. Learned this after a futile 10 minute long attempt to make the U.S. card work.

Isn't technological innovation truely wonderful?

Edit: To the original poster.

Just realized that the problem really had nothing to do with the card. You tried to buy "petrol" from a "gasoline" pump. Tsk, Tsk.

[This message has been edited by opushomes (edited 09-15-2002).]

If I remember correctly, all Visa/MasterCard cards issued in France have been smart cards (with embedded chips) for several years. Perhaps the pump credit card readers access the smart card, and won't accept any card without one.

Yes and it's REALLY something they should get on doing here. IMHO inserting your card into the reader and entering a PIN is so much more secure than CVV2 numbers etc etc etc. No way to fake having the card in the slot!

So, how do they handle web, telephone, and mail order transactions in France?