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What would you do if you were traveling in another country but that country didn’t accept payment from the one and only card you have on hand?

In this story, one truck driver finds himself faced with that dilemma at a gas station, but the person who is stressed out the most is the gas station employee. The language barrier doesn’t make it any easier!

After multiple phone calls and several hours, he finally comes up with a solution that works, but it was an ordeal he’ll never forget.

Keep reading for all the details.

“I have enough money! I could buy three cars just like yours”

I used to work as an attendant for the largest gas station company in my country. At the time I’d been working there for about two and a half years.

The job itself was actually really enjoyable and I loved my time there.

Currently I am working at the same company as a recruiter and whenever I am offered shifts as an attendant, I always accept them.

One customer didn’t understand how it worked at first.

On to the story. I was finishing up one of my last shifts as an attendant. Cleaning the oven, doing the dishes, mopping the floor etc. When a Russian speaking man came in and wanted to fill up his truck.

I tried my best to tell him, in my broken Russian, that we are a fill-first-pay-after type of gas station. And with the help of a regular customer we managed to get the point across.

He then went and filled up his truck, the total was about 350L (approx. 92,5 gallons). It was an hour until the end of my shift, when he came in to pay.

But paying proved to be a problem.

After entering the PIN for his debit card, the terminal gave an error.

After two more unsuccesful tries, I decided to contact our in-house IT team.

Turns out his bank did not have a contract with our service provider hence he couldn’t pay with his card.

All that time the regular stayed there and helped me as a translator.

Surely, a manager can help him out.

By that point I was all out of ideas, had the regular tell him to wait a bit util I could get ahold of my Station Manager.

Unfortunately she didn’t answer the phone. So I decided to call the Regional Manager.

She advised me to call the Head of External Partnerships, since he has more experience in dealing with foreign banks.

Unfortunately that was a dead end, because he hadn’t even heard of the customers bank. So off I go calling the Regional Manager once again.

Finally, an idea that might work!

Meanwhile the truck driver had called the owner of his company and told him about the whole ordeal.

The owner requested to speak to me. Thankfully he spoke a bit of English and asked me if there’s a way to bill them and have the charge paid via a bank transfer.

That lit a bulb in my head – we have a debt certificate form we can fill, which basically says that the customer agrees to the charge and agrees to pay it by a certain date.

There was actually a much better solution.

As I was finishing up filling the forms, my Station Manager called me back and after explaining her the whole story, she told me to call the Head of Security at our company.

He on the other hand told me that the debt certificate was a bad idea, since the company and the driver were from Poland and if they decided to not pay, it would be too expensive to seek legal action. He also asked me why I hadn’t just told him to use a nearby ATM to just retrieve the cash from his card.

I literally facepalmed in front of the customer – how had I missed the simplest solution to the problem at hand.

Had the regular tell the truck driver to follow me and I drove him to the ATM.

The truck driver sounds like a nice guy.

The driver successfully retrieved the cash.

While driving back we chatted a bit, as much as I could atleast. He boasted to me how his boss had wired him so much money for the trip, that he could buy three cars just like mine with it. He also told me that the first thing he’ll do when he gets back to Poland, will be to go to his back and make them sign a deal with our company’s provider.

When we made it back, the regular had gone, truck driver paid for his fuel and all was well.

It wasn’t very dramatic at all.

I gave both the regular customer and the truck driver a free coffee and a pastry of their choice for the inconvenience.

In the end I had spent almost 3 hours and made a dozen or so phonecalls to help the customer.

Thankfully the truck driver was understanding the whole time and didn’t make a fuss about the whole ordeal.

That sounds frustrating, but it worked out well in the end.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person has a question.

It could’ve ended differently!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who gets revenge on his company after they fire him and try to steal his custom program.

This person has facepalmed quite a lot.

Everyone seemed to like the story.

That story really did have a great ending. Nobody got mad. Nobody got hurt. Everything worked out, but it took quite an ordeal to get to the point.