Woman Goes To Pilot. Then Her Card Flags It As Fraud. Then She Realizes It’s Because They Tried $226 Hold: 'Buc-ee’s Does It Too'

A woman traveling through Alabama is shocked when her card is declined not once but twice at a Pilot gas station. Here is what happened.

TikTok creator Mixed Media (@mixed_media22) posted a video from outside of the gas station. “Tell me why I’m at the gas pump somewhere in Alabama, and my card’s just declined, and then I get notifications asking me, ‘Is this fraud?’” she says to start the video.

She continues, “Because it’s $226, and they’re like, 'That’s not normal.' And it [usually] puts a dollar hold on it. So my bank’s like, ‘That don’t look right.’ So they declined the charge. But I didn’t know that was the reason why.”

Why Did An Alabama Pilot Put a $226 Hold On Her Card?

In an attempt to resolve the situation, Mixed Media says she decided to swipe a different card and ran into the same problem. 

“I look at that card too—$226 hold,” she says. “Now, I’m sure I have a text message in the middle of doing this that’s going to ask me if it’s fraud or not. But I go inside and go, 'What the [expletive] is going on, because I’ve got two different banks flagging me at this point for fraud?' And I said, 'No, it’s a $1 hold.'”

She says the attendant informed her that no, large holds are actually common. “Y’all just dealing with this down here?” the creator asks. “Is anybody not talking about this? I’m glad that my bank flagged it. It’s getting crazy. This is wild.”

Are Hundred-Dollar Holds At The Gas Pump Normal?

In the comments section of the video, viewers reacted to the $226 holds the creator said were placed on her cards.

“Never use a debit card at the gas station,” suggested one viewer. “Only use a credit card or cash.”

“[That] is higher than I have ever seen, but $50-$100 is totally normal,” a second person said. “Saying that, even though you are at a gas pump, Pilot is a truck stop. It is common for trucks to pump over $1,000 worth of fuel at one stop. So I can see it being higher there. Just try a regular gas station.”

A third person said, “I live in Alabama and I have never had that happen. I’ve had the $1 hold before, but never that much and I got gas two days ago. But I don’t get my gas at Pilot, so maybe that’s just their policy? I would try another gas station for sure.”

Someone else said, “Never had that happen to me and I’ve been here my whole life.”

What’s Going On With The Holds At Pilot?

Mixed Media is far from the only person at Pilot to encounter this issue. A person posted in this Facebook group last year to complain about a $151 hold he didn’t realize would be placed on his card at Pilot. Additionally, ABC7 Amarillo covered this topic back in 2011. 

According to this analysis, gas stations place authorization holds on credit and debit cards for a certain amount. This is because the machine doesn't know how much the customer intends to pump. So, it picks an amount, puts an authorization hold on the account, and allows the customer to pump as much gas as they'd like. The hold generally clears within three days, but that can be little comfort to people without financial flexibility.

Motor1 contacted Mixed Media via a TikTok comment and a direct message. We also reached out to Pilot via press email for comment. This story will be updated if either party responds.