As odd as it may sound, some credit card companies will cut you off just like a bartender at closing time if you try to consume too much gasoline using your plastic. Drivers across the USA this summer may be upset when they cannot fill their gas tanks during summer vacations, but the credit card companies say they are doing it to protect themselves from crooks.

What is happening is that Visa and Discover are asking gas stations to shut off gas pumps once a customer fills up at least $75 worth, while MasterCard is asking for similar limits when transactions hit $100. Their motivation for doing so is that lots of credit card thieves use stolen plastic to buy gas. With gas prices so high that becomes a lucrative way for criminals to get fast value out of stolen cards. A gang in Florida, for instance, recently stole so much gas using stolen card numbers that they were netting about $10,000 a day by selling their fraudulently purchased petrol on the black market.

Now gas stations are complying, because if they fail to impose these automatic cut-off limits then the gas stations can be held liable for the credit card company financial losses. Rather than pay back credit card companies for acts of criminal fraud that target their gas stations, gas station owners are voluntarily shutting off pumps at the requested limits. To fill some big SUVs at today’s prices it can cost more than $100, so if you drive a vehicle with a huge gas tank be prepared to fill it only partially.

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