Was in the car with a buddy to get gas. I was the passenger. He said his card was declined at the pump and went into the store to run the card inside. All of his cards were declined one after another. I went in since he was gone so long to ask about what was happening. After he explained, I tried to run my Discover card; declined, my MasterCard;declined, and finally a Visa card, declined. Since we both have plenty of money, and certainly enough for a pre-authorization for fuel at a gas station, I tried to explain to the attendant (West African) that something must be wrong with the machine or the lines were down. He was obviously NOT smart enough to know that this was a possibility since the decline was coming back in a millisecond instead of an actual call being placed over the server to authorize. Instead, he insisted that nothing could be wrong with the machine because other people had used their cards earlier. This was not only illogical, but stupid. The machine was probably working fine earlier. I have shopped plenty of times when a card has been declined here or there because the system was resetting, phone lines were down, or a problem with the authorization server. This moron yelled that something was wrong with all of our cards and that we should leave the store. There is a store owner who does not know why he is losing money, reputation and loyal customers. Don't stop here if customer appreciation is important to you. Reminds me of the McDonald workers who don't know how to count change without pictures of cheeseburgers on the screen. read more