How to buy gas with your PayPal Card

Hi there everyone! If there is one thing more stressful than being broke, it is trying to figure out why the last little bit of money I have is unable to be used in my gas tank. It's my money, so what is the issue? I am here to explain in less than 3 minutes what took me over 1 hour and 3 representatives to find out today: how to buy gas with your PayPal card. Please read beyond these easy to follow instructions for an explanation of how I stumbled across this absurd topic.

First of all, you will want to know how much money is in your PayPal account. If the amount of money in your account is at least $75.00, you are able to pay at the pump as a debit purchase. If the amount of money in your account is $35.000 or more, you are able to purchase gas at the pump in the form of credit. For any account balance under $35.00, you must prepay for your gas inside of the gas station in the form of a predetermined credit amount.

Here is how I became an expert in PayPal gas purchases:

Today, my PayPal account had a balance of $17.23 and my gas tank was running on fumes. My family and I had just left our home and were on our way to a family gathering. We pulled into the gas station and up to the pump to replenish our supply and be on our merry way. My husband ran the PayPal card through as a debit purchase through the pay at pump option. The message that followed read, "see cashier for payment". He tried running the card through as credit and the same message appeared. A bit frustrated, he sent me into the gas station to prepay for the gas. The cashier swiped the PayPal card as credit, and the card was giving a declined message.

I contacted PayPal to recheck the balance on the card. We still had $17.23 on the card. I chose the option to speak with a representative so that I could find out what was going on and why I was unable to use my money at the pump. I spoke with a nice young lady who spoke very broken English and apologized several times for the inconvenience we had experienced. She insisted that we should be able to use the PayPal card to pay for our gas purchase, however, the gas station makes the ultimate decision and they were not allowing us to pump any gas.

Within the first couple of minutes of being on the phone with the representative, I felt like I may have been explaining the situation incorrectly. I was not getting anywhere fast with the representative, so I handed the phone to my husband to try and handle the situation. Turns out, it wasn't me, it was her. After being placed on hold 3 times, the representative had decided that she would transfer us to a specialist to help with the situation.

While waiting for a specialist, we drove back home so that our daughters would not be cooped up in the car for too long. The girls are age 6 and age 3, and any time frame over 5 minutes is an eternity to them!

After a lengthy hold time, a PayPal specialist with a foreign accent different from the first greeted my husband, and told him that the reason we were unable to purchase gas at the pump was because there is a certain amount of money that the gas station places on hold when a pay at pump transaction is processed. My husband asked the specialist how much money is required for the hold. She did not know the amount, however, she would be able to transfer him to another specialist who deals primarily with debit purchases. Wonderful.

Finally, after another 10 minute hold for another specialist, a woman with an American accent answered the phone and all within 3 minutes, she explained to us the simple steps I had explained above: a balance of $75.00 or more, you can pay at the pump as a debit purchase; $35.00 balance or more, you can pay as a credit purchase at the pump; a balance less than $35.00 must be paid as a specific amount run through as credit in the store. My husband asked why it took an hour to find the answer to this and the representative could only apologize and say that she did not know as this is a common problem with gas stations.

Kind of makes you wonder... why isn't everyone at PayPal trained at handling this "common problem"? I almost want to send them a bill for the Tylenol my husband and I had to take after this whole ordeal. Is that even possible? Can we?


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