baker7 Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 Man, this is unbelieveable - WISH we could get a "mistake" like this to happenCHEAP GASBrian Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDoors Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 Whoa. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Similar thing happened here, where a great many people paying with credit cards took advantage of it before one guy trying to pay cash tipped off the station owner. I think they went after them with corrected billing and the threat of prosecuting for theft if they did not approve the bill. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
irregularjoe Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Similar thing happened here, where a great many people paying with credit cards took advantage of it before one guy trying to pay cash tipped off the station owner. I think they went after them with corrected billing and the threat of prosecuting for theft if they did not approve the bill.Wait a minute here. The gas station went after the customers with a threat of a theft charge because the gas station was too stupid to know they had an incorrect price quoted?What's wrong with this picture? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Locally The police issued a warning against using Pay at the Pump , especially with debit cards.It seems that there has been a rash of cases where pumps at stations were tampered with after hours and "Skimmers" attached to the card reader / keypad so that thieves can skim the credit card info and pin / zip code info and make clones.They advise all people to go inside to pay and preferably pay cash. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDoors Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Companies often overlook mistakes in the name of customer relations, but the law is on their side if they decide to make you pay the "correct" price. Essentially the law states: If it ain't yours, under NO circumstances are you allowed to keep it. If it ain't yours and you keep it, you're a thief. No "finders, keepers," no "possession is nine tenths of the law," no "oopsey, we charged you the wrong price, oh well." If an item rings up wrong at any store, you're still liable for the difference (legally speaking, again, some places have an in-store policy that's different for customer relations purposes). Also, an "advertised" price, where you'll often see a disclaimer in the fine print, is different from the posted price at gas stations, where they are forced by law to post it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
irregularjoe Posted October 18, 2008 Report Share Posted October 18, 2008 (edited) Companies often overlook mistakes in the name of customer relations, but the law is on their side if they decide to make you pay the "correct" price. Essentially the law states: If it ain't yours, under NO circumstances are you allowed to keep it. If it ain't yours and you keep it, you're a thief. No "finders, keepers," no "possession is nine tenths of the law," no "oopsey, we charged you the wrong price, oh well." If an item rings up wrong at any store, you're still liable for the difference (legally speaking, again, some places have an in-store policy that's different for customer relations purposes). Also, an "advertised" price, where you'll often see a disclaimer in the fine print, is different from the posted price at gas stations, where they are forced by law to post it.I can see multitudes of lawsuits stemming from this.Edit:If anyone in my area knows of any idiot that is incorrectly advertising a gas price, please let me know. I'll definately stock up. Then let them come after me. I haven't enjoyed a good legal battle in some time! I need something to do. Edited October 18, 2008 by irregularjoe Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDoors Posted October 18, 2008 Report Share Posted October 18, 2008 Multitudes of lawsuits over, what? At most, a hundred dollars worth of gas? Uh, no. I don't think so. If the gas station was smart, they'd write off the loss as customer relations. But as we already know, they're NOT smart! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted October 18, 2008 Report Share Posted October 18, 2008 Did a googlehttp://www.google.com/search?gbv=2&hl=...amp;btnG=Searchand it looks like it has happened fairly frequently.Seems that it is fairly easy when punching in the price to have the decimal point jump. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted October 21, 2008 Report Share Posted October 21, 2008 They caught a guy yesterday. Somehow he hacked gas pumps to move the decimal or show "out of service" and then contacted friends who showed up and filled up. In exchange for the notification they paid him a fee. He also was doing this after hours at closed stations and charging folks half price or less . He said he had been doing it since 2001 and hadn't paid (full price) for gas in almost eight years.May be more common than we thoughthttp://www.google.com/search?sa=N&tab=...s%20pump%20hackThey said the guy had sold over 500 gallons of gas at the station when they caught him, and had hit another for 1500 a few days before.Looks like at least some of the "innocent citizens" getting the cheap gas may not have been all that innocent. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Morpheus Posted October 21, 2008 Report Share Posted October 21, 2008 true, shoot i would def fill all my vehicles up with the same card...if they want to make attempts to add charges, you don't have to authorise anything...the only proof they have of what you took was X amount of gas, whose to say that was the actual amount? was this number incorrect also? what proof do I have that it was correct, and what proof do they? If they still charge the extra, credit/debit card theft/fraud..he11 you could probably tack on identity theft too that...basically it wouldn't even make it to small claims, and any "good" lawyer would tell you over the phone they had no case...if the price can be hacked, so can the amount pumped...there are cases of gas stations that changed the amount pumped to be less than what the gauge says, so that you pay full price for what you think is a "gallon" but you are getting less...OR they program them so they advertise a lower price than the next station, when you swipe your card and start pumping the price changes to what they programmed it too, usually well over what they have advertised, and you will not know (your watching theat price gauge go as it goes up) until you check your bank statement days later (called the bait and change) (or if you sit in your car after every fill up and do the math like I do)...Besides, some one needs to start sticken it too em, I hear that the oil producing countries are going to scale back production so that the price of a barrell goes back up to over $100... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDoors Posted October 22, 2008 Report Share Posted October 22, 2008 ... Looks like at least some of the "innocent citizens" getting the cheap gas may not have been all that innocent. What? You mean there may be more to the story? Wow, that hardly EVER happens! I pulled into a station once after work in the wee hours of the morning and began the process of pumping gas but ... something was amiss. I looked at the building and I couldn't see anyone inside. Sure, they could be stocking or something, but ... something was amiss. The station wasn't open yet and they must have forgotten to turn off the pumps the night before. You still would've had to charge the purchase to start the pump, but it sure was odd. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted October 22, 2008 Report Share Posted October 22, 2008 One casehttp://www.the33tv.com/pages/content_landi...&feedID=460>Police say the thieves hit the station when it was closed for the night by getting access to a pump using a keypad device. Authorities say the device allowed the suspects to deactivate the pump then put it out of service. They say once the gas started flowing, the thieves called people to come fill up while they collected the cash. Colleyville Police Officer, Bill Hudgins says, "they would come pay him the 20 dollars and he would tell them where to go to get a full tank of gas".Anotherhttp://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread351027/pg1> Gas pumps have locks on the outside of them. You can simply keybump them with a BumpKey , then use electronic keypad inside to set the price of gas to $0.00, and PRESTO! No device needed. There are hundreds of manuals on how to reprogram the pumps via keypad from the internet. My guess is 80 to 90% of gas stations pump locks have the same keys (master keys) so that different companies and drivers all have easy access to the gaspumps.http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=218565http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn41...19/ai_n15821815Many more from what I seeIt appears that there are a couple of ways of doing this and that they can set the pumps to either an "out of service / testing" mode or change the price. Setting it to $0.00 is to obvious that they did it, but shifting the decimal point can slip by under the screen for quite a while before someone reports it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDoors Posted October 24, 2008 Report Share Posted October 24, 2008 With blind panic setting in over the financial markets, and OPEC agreeing to lower output, AND this information on the 'net, I imagine we'll be hearing about this a LOT more. At least they won't be getting to MY gas tank, the car's in the garage when I'm home and under camera surveillance in a guarded parking structure when I'm at work. Funny (to me) story: I have friends that drain every last drop out of their car's gas tanks before they'll begrudingly fill it up, all the while moaning about how much it cost when they finally get around to it. So when they're out and about it's a game of chicken between them to see who'll keep driving on "E" and who'll fill it up. Constant bickering over something stupid, something that a slight change of habit would fix. Now when the tank's empty they say, "Someone must have stolen gas!" No, ya morons, you've been running on empty for twenty years! "No, no, I had blah-blah-blah and now blah-blah-blah ..." No, you were on empty, now you're on empty, there IS no blah-blah-blah. "Yes there is, I had ... " Whatever. Where we goin' for dinner? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted October 25, 2008 Report Share Posted October 25, 2008 Yeah, here in Dallas; after the news stations began urging everyone to get locking gas caps (as if it required urging) in response to an increase in siphonings when prices first rose; the crooks have taken to punching a hole in your gas tank and letting it drain out into whatever they are using to get what they can. Then they let the rest just pour out on the ground so you have a fire hazard, and an empty tank with a hole in it which has to be replaced. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDoors Posted October 26, 2008 Report Share Posted October 26, 2008 ... crooks have taken to punching a hole in your gas tank and letting it drain out ... I must not have a crooked bone in my body as I would NEVER EVER have thought of that. What a ROTTEN thing to do, for what? Fifty bucks worth of gas? Crazy. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted October 30, 2008 Report Share Posted October 30, 2008 Well, who ever accused a crook of caring about the damage they cause.The car window they bash out to grab a couple cds costs several hundred dollars to fix. The door they kick in to burglarize your house likewise probably costs more to repair or replace than what they get for the stuff they steal. Then you have to replace it.When some crooks broke into the toolbox on my truck I figure it cost me between $300 and $500 to fix the damage and replace the lost tools. They probaby got $25 for them at the pawn shop.When I got shot in the home invasion robbery, it cost several hundred thousand dollars in hospital costs to put me back together; and they caused about a thousand dollars in damage to doors etc in my house which I had to fix when I got out of the hospital (nothing like coming back from six weeks in the hospital to find that your front door still won't close or lock because the OL was so depressed due to bipolar after she called the hospital and they had my name wrong so she thought I was dead. For some bizarre reason , when I was first logged into the er, they put my name down as Keith Richards. Never did figure that one out, it wasn't until I came to in the ICU four days later and they kept calling me keith , and I corrected them and it took a day to get it all straightened out. By then my OL had called every hospital in the area and none of them had any record of admitting me. So she thought I was dead and was waiting for the coroner to call so she could claim my body. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JDoors Posted October 31, 2008 Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 Keith Richards, huh? You must have looked like HELL when you were admitted. OK, nothing to joke about. Must've been terrifying for the OL. Even "innocent" pranks have consequences. Working at a casino I know the consequences when someone underage manages to get on the casino floor, regardless of whether they gambled or not. They review the surveillance tapes and every employee they passed gets fired. You can imagine the havoc that causes to people's lives, just because some nineteen-year-old wanted to play some games. "What harm can it cause?" Eh. (They've been a bit more lenient lately - maybe they lost too many employees?) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted November 9, 2008 Report Share Posted November 9, 2008 Keith Richards, huh? You must have looked like HELL when you were admitted. OK, nothing to joke about. Must've been terrifying for the OL.Yep, being Bipolar she went into a deep depression and when I got out I found out she had stopped doing dishes and laundry and hadn't once put the trash out ; had taken in two homeless people ( a young couple she pregnant and both jobless and they did not do dishes, laundry, or put out trash either).My dog (who saved my life by biting the gunman on the leg till he bled worse than I did) also thought I was dead and when he recognized me he flopped around on the ground like he was having a fit and pissed all over himself.I think that because I was only wearing underwear when I was shot (hey it was 2am and I had been in bed when the door was kicked in) they had no id to go with and asked my name .I must have said Pete, call Richard ( Richard being the company HR and finance officer). But being semi conscious , it got slurred together. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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