Private used car purchasers: If you’re thinking of buying a used car in the next year, you need to know a warning from the Better Business Bureau. Hurricane flooded cars from Texas are showing up in Canada. You should, in any case, but now have to, get it inspected by a mechanic before paying for it. After the fact, when you need an out of province inspection anyway in order to register it, it’s too late and you’re out the money. A shortcut would be to pay the out of province inspection before buying and use it as your indicator of whether to buy or not. It’ll save you one step and a few bucks.
At a gas station in the US? Finally a tip I needed years ago. It would have avoided me getting a real U.S. credit card. At almost every gas station, pay at the pump requires you to enter your Zip code as a security measure. Well, us Canadians don’t have one. That means you’re going inside to pre-authorize, then gas, then back in to get your receipt for the actual total to make sure they don’t cash the full pre-authorized amount. But there’s a trick you can try that I’m told solves that: When asked for the Zip code, enter: 23400. Apparently that tells the system you’re a Canadian and that you’re good for the charge!