I've Heard Of Drive-Offs, But This Is Ridiculous!

[ShotgunSteven]

There is an untended gas station in town that is set up mainly for truckers to use. Everything is automated, no human attendant. It seems someone figured out how to bypass the credit card machines, and had been filling up for free for an extended period of time. They have now determined that over 27,000 gallons has been stolen. :Q

 

[Shawn]

Mill did it.

 

[StageLeft]

hehe

 

[Ryan]

Originally posted by: Shawn
Mill did it.

Lol - the exact thing popped into my head when I read that

 

[saxophonoia]

haha

 

[EagleKeeper]

With the resources that you have he on AT, I would have thought that more would have been done.

You forgot to fill up the trailer tank in the tanker truck.

 

[Fenixgoon]

thats impressive, lol

 

[Zontor]

In high school I worked at a gas station at night. There used to be a couple of guys who would seem to take forever to pay for their gas - and when they did, the bill was only about $3.

They'd put the nozzle in their tank, squeeze in a few bucks worth, then talk with each other, wander around the store for 20-30 minutes, etc.

I eventually got curious and discovered that the anti-siphon mechanism wasn't working on a few of the pumps. They'd start pumping gas, then reach up and push the switch that was hit when you put away the gas nozzle - but they'd leave the nozzle in the car with the handle depressed. A reasonable flow of gas kept coming out & over 20 minutes or so they'd have put in 5-6 gallons.

I'm taking the fifth if asked if *I* ever tried it....

 

[KingNothing]

That's really poor bookkeeping that they didn't notice all that gas hadn't been paid for beforehand.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Cameras??
Hmm, I may have to try that little trick with the motorcycle tank, I could put half a tank in and let the rest just drip out. lol

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: rbloedow

Originally posted by: Shawn
Mill did it.

Lol - the exact thing popped into my head when I read that

WTF?

 

[VirtualLarry]

One time I pulled into a gas station, the local neighborhood one, and went in to pre-pay (so I wouldn't over-pump, I find that convenient when I'm on short cash), and the lady informed me that the pump already showed $20... turned out that the prior customer simply drove off. :| I didn't see anyone drive away from that pump either, so it had to have happened a bit earlier. My car was so low on gas at the time, that if they had tried to press it (thankfully they didn't), it should have been obvious that $20 worth of gas didn't go in my tank. (Would have filled mine, actually, but I have a feeling that the drive-off was probably some SUV driver that felt that they were fighting back against the recent raise in gas prices, or something.) Kind of shocking to be briefly accused of something like that though, especially for someone with a habit of pre-paying.

As for what happened in this case, the person probably didn't actually steal 27000 gal of gas. More than likely, they did steal quite a bit, but then the company went back and accounted for *all* book-keeping discrepencies, and decided to go after this person for all of it. Kind of like, getting into an accident, or getting your car hit in a parking lot, and not doing anything about it, and then when you get hit by a live driver, going after them for the sum-total damage that your car endured. Why one of those is considered both perfectly legal and "standard procedure", and why one is considered "illegal insurance fraud", even though they are mostly the same thing, is beyond me. If anything, if it wasn't discovered until now, shouldn't the gas dealer be considered negligent as well, for not having any human personell manning the stations at all?