Pay for gas with an SMS or your E-ZPass

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Business

PayByCar is offering 30 cents off per gallon at 27 local Alltown gas stations.

A person holds a fuel pump nozzle at a gas station.

Filling your tank just got a little easier and a little cheaper.

A Boston startup called PayByCar and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation have partnered for a low-contact “fuel payment solution,” according to a company statement.

The program allows customers with an E-ZPass transponder to make contactless payments for gas at 27 Alltown participants stations across the state including Braintree, Concord, Lowell, Roxbury, Swampscott, Wellesley and Yarmouth.

Users register on the company’s website and pay by confirming a text message when they visit a participating gas station. There is no need to open a wallet or touch the keypad of a fuel dispenser.

It also cuts transaction time in half, according to PayByCar.

To sweeten the deal, customers can claim a 30-cent-per-gallon rebate through February 10. It will be applied to a maximum of 20 gallons of fuel per visit for up to five visits at participating Alltown Massachusetts stations.

Gasoline purchases will not appear on the customer’s E-ZPass account, but on the card the customer registers with on the PayByCar website. Drivers without a toll transponder can apply for a free PayByCar Smart sticker, a toll-free RFID tag.

“Nowadays, in the age of social distancing, commuters want to be in physical contact with others as little as possible when buying coffee or refueling,” said Anand Raman, president and co-founder of PayByCar, in a press release. “PayByCar helps solve this problem by offering an easy-to-use, app-less text platform where the customer’s only requirement is to respond with their pump number when prompted with a PayByCar text notification.”

PayByCar founder Kevin Condon said The Boston Globe that the service was developed in cooperation with the E-ZPass Group, the consortium that operates the toll payment service in 19 states.

Condon told the newspaper that the PayByCar service marks the first time E-ZPass has been used to pay for anything other than highway tolls. But he hopes to expand the payment option to other services, from parking to fast food.

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