Chevron responds to complaint about minimum charge enforcement in one of their stores...

Our letter to Chevron (which details the incident that took place earlier this week):

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing on behalf of NoMinimumCharge.com, a consumer protection website.

It has come to my attention while shopping at a local Chevron station that your retail store is enforcing a disallowed policy in regard to credit card transactions.

While making a purchase today, I was told that I could not make a $4.30 purchase with any credit card except for a Chevron card; there was a $10 minimum purchase amount. Your contract with Visa/MasterCard strictly forbids any sort of minimum or maximum credit card transaction amount and violations are grounds for termination of your station's contract with Visa or MasterCard.

I would like to formally request that you ban such practices in your stations. The manager at the station I visited, at 304 Arlington Ave in Kensington, CA, very grudgingly completed the transaction and is going to continue enforcing this policy to consumers who know no better.

Thank you for your attention to this message.

Fast forward several days later and Chevron responds to the message:

Thank you for taking the time to contact Chevron regarding your visit to your local Chevron retailer located at 304 ARLINGTON AVE in KENSINGTON, CA.

We sent your comments to the retailer that owns and operates this station to make him aware of the incident so that he can take corrective action.  We know that as a business owner who values customer goodwill, he will counsel his station management to ensure that this does not happen again.

Chevron is committed to providing excellent products and services to our customers, and when this does not happen we are very disappointed.  It is very difficult to be knowledgeable of all events at all stations, however, customers such as you enable us to take corrective action when we are able.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.  We apologize for the inconvenience that it caused.

Contrary to the incident that you described, we sincerely value you as a customer and hope this incident will not keep you from patronizing stations in our retail network in the future.

Whether or not the owner talks to the manager about these practices is unknown. The response didn't specifically address or quote the issue at hand. We have no immediate plans to revisit this Chevron station, so it may be a while before we find out whether or not the policy is still being enforced. One thing that was left out on the initial contact with Chevron is that there was a sign posted behind the counter stating this policy.