Certainly an interesting idea. Some things to consider:
1. As sountechie stated, having correct change to give the customer, if necessary.
2. Need to have the gas station "cashier" or whoever actually swipes and processes the CC charge buy into this. They are going to be curious (to put it mildly) as to why YOU are paying for the customer.
3. The owner certainly is NOT going to like it since it directly eats into his profit.
4. See if there are caps on the 5% Cash Back on your CC.

Most of the gas stations have pumps with built in card readers, so you don't have to deal with any cashier. But you're right, you'd have to carry some coins with you, to give change if needed.

Good point about the Cash Back caps, I didn't think of that, I guess you'd have to make sure you don't have one. And yeah, I'm sure you'd have to do this on the down low from the owner/manager.

uutxs said:Certainly an interesting idea. Some things to consider:
1. As sountechie stated, having correct change to give the customer, if necessary.
2. Need to have the gas station "cashier" or whoever actually swipes and processes the CC charge buy into this. They are going to be curious (to put it mildly) as to why YOU are paying for the customer.
3. The owner certainly is NOT going to like it since it directly eats into his profit.
4. See if there are caps on the 5% Cash Back on your CC.

If you're clever enough to come up with stuff like this, hopefully you're clever enough to get a better job than gas station attendant .

I had thought about this as well recently. Although a couple of pitfalls

1. CC companies will likely believe there is fraud on your account if there is multiple purchases from the same gas station on the same day.

2. If the owner finds out - you're in deep ****, especially these days with the fees being so high due to the cost of gas. There have already been gas station owners complaining about the fees, if they find out an employee or some customer is doing this for others, they'd be on you in a minute.

Definitely thinking outside the box. (Green for OP.) Now if you (or others) can just stay out of the box (prison).

Some cards, like AMEX's business SimplyCash card (5% Cash Back on gas purchases) are uncapped--unless AMEX considers imposing an FR (a Financial Review) as a cap.

SSG said:Would this be violating any laws? Anyway, I was just wondering. ... I figured if this works, it can help out someone who's looking to make some extra money.

From '01-early '04 I worked full-time at a convenience store (midwest capital city). This was in the days before 5%/6% CashBack unfortunately, but I had my Discover card (tiering up to 1%, ooh baby) and had uses for cash at that time so...

When people came in and paid with exact change (or even something simple to figure out for a customer not looking at the screens for info), usually gas, I'd pocket the $, usually wait til the end of my shift (I'd often combine multiple purchases onto one receipt) and run it thru my card. I approached $250 in a single transaction, grand total over a couple years...doubt I passed a couple-few thousand.

In addition to the lackluster "profit" behind it, I was also not so sure my employer wouldn't come across a "red flag" of one CC paying for a shit-ton of stuff, or the CC issuer getting curious as to how I could spend so much at a gas station (especially with recent history showing about 2 fill-ups a month). As time wore on I became less confident in my employer's aptitude (I was a manager so I knew it was possible, I just knew how all-around inept they were as well), so I never stopped completely.

If I was in a similar position today....oh yeah, I'd make that s*** work. Between Driver's Edge this, CashReturns that, Discover Open Road somethingorother.... of course, having a job that actually pays well may be the winning proposition in the long haul, but can't beat the feeling of free money.

here is a better idea. and it doesnt have to be a gas station.

If you were the responsible person for closing up a store at night...Take all the cash before closing and charge the amount on your credit card.

This will eliminate the multiple transactions flagging CC companies...

But as pointed out before, doesnt get the owner off your back because of the processing fee required...

or get in on it with the owner...

figure out what the owners processing fee schedule is...

i.e. ~2%

if you have a card with 5% Cash Back, just pay the fee to the owner plus maybe a little extra...keep the rest!

for smaller stores, there may be a possibility to lower the processing fee based on volume too since all transactions will be with CC rather than cash...

bassmanben said:1. CC companies will likely believe there is fraud on your account if there is multiple purchases from the same gas station on the same day.After the 2nd or 3rd purchase, card will be frozen. And you will have to call your issuer. And same thing will happen again and again. Anti-Fraud systems will automatically do this over and over.

And, you would of course be fired by your employer the first moment he finds out what you are doing.