From now until after Jan1st give extra time for letters and packages

[renovation]

if your expecting or shipping anything expect it to take extra time to arrive. the only thing you can count on right now is for your dollars to vanish more quickly. :santa:

Also a side note....
SAFETY WARNING
if you use a debit card to buy gas -and its at a prepay gas station the station may tie up more dollars from your account then you got in gas. i have heard of friends bouncing checks because of this. its not that they are trying to rip you off, just they may take $75 on hold and you may only spend lets say only $40 in gas. it can take 1-5 days for your account to be credited. like i said this is just a safety warning.

[modena]

thanks for the heads up, I know that they have been taking extra funds and holding them in your account for every gas purchase. I heard of one guy that got some amount of gas 3 times in 2 days, for a total of about $40 and his debit statement online showed they were holding $35 per transaction until it cleared. I am sure if you went over, you could rectify the situation with the bank and not charge you an overage fee, but who needs the headaches this time of year!

[ialsohaveadream]

You're selling what now?

[nickel]

how can gas stations hold 75 of my dollars when i filled up for half that?

that's bs.

[Prisoner 24601]

Not only will letters take longer but then the price of stamps is going up!! What is this extra money going for??

and nickel, with gas prices, they are assuming that everyone drives SUVs and pays around that much to fill up possibly! Its Speedpass for me!

[jstreet]

If you use the "debit" transaction mode with your debit card (entering a PIN) vs. the "credit" transaction mode with your debit card you shouldn't have this problem. I haven't, at least. The "hold" only happens with credit, so I do PIN-based transactions for almost everything when I can to avoid it.

[renovation]

I know from things i read -be careful when using your cards at hess gas stations!
This is a quote by one trader :( from a different forum:
"Hess stations in particular have this issues with taking $75 regardless, some people never get properly credited. I have seen no other gas stations perform this practice."