ZIP code verification is commonly used for credit card authentication at gas pumps in the US, especially before the advent of chip & PIN.
This is immensely annoying for Canadians who drive their cars to the US, although there are some built-in workarounds supported by the credit card processor such as punching in the 3 numerical digits of a Canadian postal code followed by 00.
When credit card companies started requiring pin&chip at stores in the US a couple of years ago, there was a special exception for gas stations, I guess because their pumps are a pain to retrofit or something. As a result, it’s an easier target for fraud.
I'm from Norway. Zip code thing completely threw me off first time I was renting a car in the US. Drove up to the pump, whipped out my card and... what? Why on earth do they need to know my zip code?
Didn't know any zip codes offhand so ended up paying inside, which turned out I had to do in advance of course, another aha moment. Inside the cashier naturally asked how many gallons I wanted. I had no idea. Rental car was not one I'd ever driven before, and I hadn't looked in the manual for the size of the tank. I took some comfort that the cashier had no idea either. And so there I was trying to guess how many liters the car's tank might be, how much might be left and converting that into gallons.
Back outside with a conservative 4 gallons to pump, the guy behind in line kindly informed us of the zip code of the area we were in, for next time. Came in very handy.
90210 is the most famous zip code in America because there was a really popular show in the 90s that referenced that zip code called "Beverly Hills, 90210" (commonly known as just "90210"). It had various spinoffs going into the 2010s.
Because that zip code was so famous an unrelated reality show was named "Dr. 90210" about plastic surgeons in the Beverly Hills area.
I don't think the area you were in had anything to do with it. The zip code is supposed to match the card.
And you don't have to guess the exact amount of fuel, you just pick a number greater than the cost of a fill-up and less than infinity/your credit limit.
Yeah that I gathered, but the closest thing to a zip code we got here in Norway is four digits, and it didn't accept that.
> you don't have to guess the exact amount of fuel
Of course, but the cashier forgot to mention that I'd get back what I didn't use, and being a bit off balance already by the new experiences I didn't think of this myself.
I believe it's a US credit card thing. Not sure if anything actually checks the zip code nowadays. A long time ago, I almost got stranded in the US with my (European) credit card, and I suspect it had to do with not being able to provide a fitting zip code (different formats).
As others said, but more specifically, requiring billing zip code to match what's on file for the credit card can significantly reduce fraud, and that impacts the processing fees. Some merchant accounts may charge less if the billing zip code matches, some accounts might not have a difference in charges and may even actually charge a fee to do the address verification, but the reduction in chargebacks could be meaningful.
This is immensely annoying for Canadians who drive their cars to the US, although there are some built-in workarounds supported by the credit card processor such as punching in the 3 numerical digits of a Canadian postal code followed by 00.