Drivers carrying cash may have an advantage at the local pump.

Some local gas stations are offering discounts to patrons paying cash, in an effort to spend less on credit card transaction fees, but their attempt might fail. Customer frustration, inconvenience and the formidable cost of filling a tank could prevent success.

Station owners say they’re offering discounts for cash-paying customers because as gas prices have spiked, credit card surcharges have remained the same; and competition has intensified among the stations.

A few stations reported cash discounts have helped, but others fear the discounts could drive away customers, who see different prices as an expense for card holders.

But it’s illegal to have surcharges on gas, said Jeff Lamm, spokesman for the state Attorney General.

However, it’s above board to offer discounts to cash-carrying customers as long as both prices are clearly advertised, Lamm said.

Stations in West Atlantic City, Buena Vista Township, Mullica Township and Absecon have adopted this practice. Prices posted Thursday were 4 and 10 cents less per gallon for cash transactions.

Rangit Dhaliwal, owner of a Gulf station on the White Horse Pike in Absecon, said he started charging different rates a few weeks ago because “credit card companies are gouging me with fees.”

Some credit companies have responded: MasterCard, for example, capped interchange fees on gas purchases last year, according to spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin.

But station owners widely reported that the approximately 2 percent transaction fee hasn’t changed. It also hits harder as gas prices rise and competitively minded station owners don’t raise their prices proportionally.

Dhaliwal said he’s glad plenty of customers choose to pay cash – and take the discount -because it saves him money on interchange fees.

Yet experts and industry representatives have said the cheaper price could backfire.

Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, said it’ll be hard to change customers’ perceptions.

“If it’s against the rules to surcharge, but two-thirds or more (of customers) pay by plastic, and if they think you’ve slyly slipped in a surcharge (that) punishes them more than they’re already punished, then you’ll lose their business,” Lenard said.

Then again, other drivers will go to great lengths to get the cheapest gas, he said.

“We’re very dependent on gas, so there’s an emotional connection,” Lenard said.

Sandy Becker, a marketing professor at Rutgers Business School, agreed cash discounts could grant the feeling of satisfaction consumers often seek.

Making an extra effort to buy inexpensive gas, even at an inconvenience, gives the buyer a sense of control over something they previously had no grasp on, Becker said.

But customer loyalty, another emotional factor behind purchasing decisions, is a non-issue because gas is perceived to be the same everywhere, Becker said.

And logical benefits, like saving money, derived from using cash, are probably too low to break customers of their credit-card wielding habits.

“It’s a more significant purchase, so having cash available isn’t always the case,” Becker said, even though a person who chooses to use cash to save eight cents per gallon would pay $1.20 or $1.30 less for 14 gallons of gas, based on average prices.

“They’re certainly taking a risk by doing it,” Becker said. “Customers might go elsewhere, even if the (difference) is eight cents.”

To consumers who carry debit or credit cards – transaction fees are the same if the customer does not enter a PIN – or run up gas tabs that surpass the cash in their wallets, the cash discounts seem frustrating and unfair.

Steve Israel paid with a credit card recently when he filled up at the Absecon Gulf station. Israel spends $1,000 per month on gas, since he owns X-treme Solutions, an auto-detailing company that brings him from Bellmawr to the Atlantic City area a couple times each month.

Israel was annoyed by the price difference for cash and credit card users, but he directed his sentiments toward the gas companies, not individual station owners.

“I think it’s wrong they charge more for credit cards. It’s straight up greed on the part of the gas company,” he said.

All customers pay the same amount at Garden State Fuel on the Black Horse Pike, in Pleasantville, and Manager Naim Kahn said differing rates might upset his clientele.

The station’s price per gallon of unleaded was $3.79 Thursday – the same as cash-discount rates at neighboring Shell and Atlantic City Gas stations.

“We’re breaking even right now,” he said. “In the future, we might do it (offer cash discounts), too, but not now. People, they don’t always know the 2 or 3 percent you have to pay (to credit card companies).”

The crunch facing gas stations is unsurprising, given the historically low margins of the business, climbing gas prices and unfaltering credit-card surcharges for merchants, Becker said.

“With credit cards, it’s take it or leave it, this is the deal,” said Lenard, of the National Association of Convenience Stores. “It’s extremely frustrating.”

To e-mail Emily Previti at The Press:

EPreviti@pressofac.com