Self-pay gas station pumps break across NZ as software can't handle Leap Day
arstechnica.comLooking back at the recent history of the company involved, Invenco, the main foundational change since the last leap year occurred (2020) is that they were sold in 2022 to a United States-based global industrial tech company Vontier.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/472444/ivenco-sold-to-us... (sic)
There is a certain pattern there, of home-grown startup, mentored through internal growth and success - then sold off, at which time all sorts of the usual merger weirdness and slipping-through-cracks happens.
Pretty sure I interviewed with this company about 10 years ago. Their software stack was all assembly on the embedded side. They were in the process of developing an new hardware with a soft-core processor because the original hardware was all end of life.
Gas stations in New Zealand are interesting because for the majority of them you fill up before paying inside. They trust you not to drive away with their gas. Self-pay gas stations are relatively new.
Pay before fill is predominantly an American thing.
Australia, NZ, UK and most of Europe all operate on a fill then pay.
Some stations in Australia at least are an exception that open 24/7 and have no employees and are prepaid and some manned stations where they charge at the pump during night hours for safety reasons.
Many fuel stations here in NZ have switched to pay first then fill for cash payments. Most stations I go to have signs saying 'Please go inside to pay first' or words to that effect on the pumps. However many chains have introduced self-payment card terminals, payments via app, etc so it's not a hassle if you can use these other options.
Many say this, but not once have I ever had to do it. Lift the pump and wait for the attendant to approve. Then pay after.
That's a new one since I last visited, but I guess it has been a few years
For automated gas stations where you pay at a machine, this is standard also in Europe.
> Pay before fill is predominantly an American thing
Huh? Every gas station I've seen in the US is fill before pay. Except in NJ where there's an attendant.
Are you posting from an alternate universe? Or the 1950s?
This was the norm during my childhood (90s and 00s). Paying at the pump is a fairly recent development. I think gas stations were reluctant to adopt it because it makes it harder to sell snacks.
I live in Australia now, and all the servos (gas stations) I've encountered here are just like the American gas stations I grew up with: you pump, then go inside to pay. The only real difference is that adding air to your tires is always free here.
> just like the American gas stations I grew up with: you pump, then go inside to pay
Within the similar timeframe I've always encountered the three-step process: you go inside and pre-pay, back out to pump, then back in to get your change (if you didn't just load $20 onto the pump and use it all, anyway). Even the 'pay inside' button on the pumps just flashes "See attendant" on the screen. Same when I worked at gas stations during the downturn. The only places I've ever found that'll let you pump before paying have been the most rural lil independent stations. Gotta love the varied experiences across this bigass country.
Both technical possibilities. Would explain a lot of HN comments....
As recently as 2019 I would refuse to purchase gasoline at a station that was pay-before-pump. There were enough options. This is no longer the case sadly.
They're usually card-based. You insert (or in past decades swipe) your card, a hold gets put on your account, you pump the gas, and the measured amount gets removed from your account & the hold removed. If you don't have enough in your account for the hold, the transaction declines. It's effectively pre-pay, even though the transaction settlement doesn't happen until after the gas is pumped.
It's not a huge amount of trust; They have your number plate on camera.
These days, most petrol stations do keep the pump disabled until a human inside presses a button. I assume the staff member is doing a quick visual check to check for anything suspicious or unsafe.
And it's not like you can't pay at the pump, most petrol stations have supported it for ages, it's just that most people in NZ would rather pay inside. I suspect the historic "fill up before paying" experience is just so streamlined that nobody bothered learning how to pay at the pump, no need to guess how much petrol you will need or risk needing a refund. And if you were going to buy anything else from the shop, it's actually faster to pay inside.
I've had a driving licence in the UK for 26 years, and have never once paid for my fuel before filling up. This is normal everywhere in Europe at least, to the point where I suspect the US is the outlier
That used to be normal in the US, nowadays most pumps are automated.
You can fill up 24/7, even if the store is closed.
cries in new jersey
I make it a point when driving through NJ to fill up with gas before crossing into NJ (or making sure I have enough to get through it).
I made the mistake once of needing gas on the NJ Turnpike, stopping at a rest area and having to wait for 45 (yes FORTY FIVE) minutes while the ONE attendant operating both sides of a single pump slowly worked his way through a massive line of agitated motorists. Never Again.
I’ve driven in the US and the UK (among other countries) and haven’t paid before filling up in either. Is this a result of paying with cash or other non-card methods, as pumps in the US seem to require inserting the card first probably as an authorisation?
I also don’t drive that much these days so may be misremembering things. The only issue I had with payments was in a station in a small town in Italy which refused to accept most foreign cards (ant least based on other people around me also struggling) and was the automated no-human type of station so there wasn’t an easy solution.
Putting a card in before pumping is considered "prepay". They'll put a hold on your account to make sure you have the money. There isn't much point to post-pay with cards.
10–15 years ago it was common in the US where you would pull up, hit "pay inside", pump all your gas, then go inside and pay at the register. Now because of theft, if you want to pay with cash, virtually all stations require you to go inside, pay for x gallons of gas, and they'll turn on the pump to give you that much. Which is annoying because unless you're really good at guessing, you can't just fill it up anymore.
When you can pay with card at the pump, the only remaining users for "pay inside" are thieves and the occasional cash-only customer.
Also no surprise they don't want you to pay cash, that means dealing with cash which is expensive.
Employees at the gas station could spend their time selling hot dogs instead :)
Most of the stations around me actually offer a cash discount. When you're dealing with a single-digit margin, that 2.5% CC fee looks pretty tempting. More are trying to push their station cards now though.
Or people from Europe. It’s 50/50 whether an automated station will accept my European card - can’t figure out the pattern there
In my experience this seems to be much less of a problem now with contactless payments, in both directions. US cards that used to require swipe-and-signature or chip-and-signature instead of chip-and-PIN seem to just work in when tapping (at least in the 3-4 countries I’ve traveled in extensively, although contactless isn’t widely accepted in some countries) and cards from a few European countries seem to work with contactless which is finally increasingly widely adopted in the US.
Back around 2008, I recall having problems because my Australian cards would be prompted for a 5-digit zip code. It only happened at gas stations for some reason. The closest we have is 4-digit postcodes, which it wouldn't accept. Eventually, I figured out I could prepend a 0, but I didn't want to trial-and-error that unless it set off a fraud flag with my bank. Probably a good thing it was pre-pay in the cases that didn't work.
Well you can fill it up, but you have to run back in to get your change.
If you have two people one can wait, start it once the other pays, then you both go to the bathroom and pick up the change on the way out.
Well yeah, but it's cold out lol
In France at least, more and more stations require pre-paying at the counter, especially stations in big cities.
Fill, then pay is normal in India too. And AFAIK, all pumps are manually operated. Not seen any automated ones.
It's not uncommon in Latin America, too, at least.
I don't think it's uncommon in Europe. I've never had to pay upfront here in Poland. CCTV will record your plates if you drive away without paying.
I drive all around Europe and if they asked me to pay first I'd suspect it's some kind of a scam.
I used an unattended gas station for the first time few weeks ago and it took me 10 minutes to figure out why the diesel isn't flowing... Though I didn't even notice it's unattended at first.
That used to be the case, but definitely Pak N Save and Gulf stations you pre-pay (at least put your card in and approve it) before hand...
Yep this is the case at most (if not all) the brands e.g. Z, BP, Mobil, etc. But it does vary by site (and possibly time of the day and/or whether they have enough staff to monitor etc). In my experience pay-after-fill has not been the norm here in New Zealand for quite some time.
Yeah, I was shocked how many gas station are manned.
In Denmark they are almost all unmanned, and if manned you still pay at the pump with a credit/debit card.
The manned gas stations are for serving hotdogs :)
Same for Finland. Even those manned stations have terminals there. I think there are few, but I don't think I have ever paid for gas at the till...
Its just a dark pattern to make you walk into store and buy junk. Remember the most profit in gas station is in store inside and not in selling gas.
This confused me greatly last year when I visited and was standing around after filling up very confused as to what to do next.
Related ongoing thread:
Ask HN: Did you encounter any leap year bugs today? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39554539 - Feb 2024 (85 comments)
Another reason to use exisiting date/time libraries instead of rolling your own.
I'm sure leap year didn't exist when that code was written, or something.
smfh.