So I pull up to the gas pump to fill up the GF’s minivan. I get out slide my debit card threw and lift the nozzle up. It was at this time that I noticed the price. The listed price on the road sign was $2.94 a gallon for 89 octane, but the price on the pump had the decimal point one position to the left $0.294 a gallon. I proceeded to pump 14.903 gallon into the vehicle at a price of $4.38. At this point I had to make a decision,
A. Drive away and enjoy the great deal on my fill up.
B. Drive back to the house and get the gas hog truck with the 36 gallon fuel tank.
C. Pick up a dozen 5 gallon gas cans to throw in the back of the truck.
D. Drive up to the attendant, inform her of the error, and offer to pay the difference.

I chose D. I drove up and offered to pay the difference; the attendant thanked me for my honesty, and declined my offer of repayment. What would you have done?

 

Thats tuff. Just because of my lack of money.. prolly A. If I needed somethin to cheer me up that day, B. If I was feelin good that day, D. hahaha. Eaither way its the right thing you did.

 

C.
I would then go ahead and tell the attendant that the pricing was off. Even then after other customers had filled up, i bet you would still be the first one to tell the attendant.

 

Well.... I think I would go with D. I've pulled my share of dumb-******* moves and I'd probably want to save another poor ******* from getting fired for one.

 

Wow, good for you!

Seriously awesome when you make the hard choice to do the right thing and it pays off.

Me, I woulda pulled a "B" four times over, filling up everything I own, including the lawn mower.

 

**** that i guess i'm a bad person. one time a friend and i went to tap mac and when you withdrew $10 it was also spitting out a $20 and it wasn't showing up on the reciept, well we both kept taking out 10's upon 10's. we expected to get caught but didn't really care we'd just give it back. well it's been about 6 years and haven't heard a damn thing.

 

hmm, i probably would have grabbed the truck and filled up, or at least another 5 gallon tank. then spilt the beans to the attendant..

did anyone read the news article about this happening in wisconsin i think? and it was a frenzy for like 45, and 580 gallons of gas were sold haha!

and damn! 2.94... fricken almost 3.40 around here

 

Option E:

I would have called all of my friends after I went back to get my other car and fill it up.

We get screwed on gas prices anyway, might as well "stick it to the man" when you get the chance.

 

Unfortunately "the man" is not the gas station owner, which is who you're actually stealing from. It's the big oil companies and our governments that subsidize them with tax revenue via foreign policy.

 

I suppose this hinges on whether it's a mom and pop owned gas station or an Exxon or something like that.

 

My family owns a gas station. Life sucks as a gas station owner. Owner's of BPs, Exxon, Chevron ETC. all buy pretty much the same exact fuel from distributors but they are required to buy it from a specific distributor. That distributor tacks on 10-15 cents per gallon just because they're a name brand dealer. So even though shell might have a similar price as that mom and pop station you could fill up at, they're making less money but it's frequently the same gas.

Some distributors will add the additives while filling the truck, so it's not exactly the same fuel but for the most part it is.

 

Interesting.

 

For example my family's station used to be a Texaco but we converted to a generic name because Texaco was charging us an extra 12 cents a gallon to use their name. Plus their credit card machines were more expensive blah blah blah.
We went generic, were able to pick our distributor and actually become competitive. We still buy the same fuel as we did when we were Texaco so our customers get the same exact thing at a better price.

 

I didn't know that's how it worked. I figured the big name gas stations were corporate owned.

 

very interesting. so basically just go to the cheapest gas station you can find regardless of techron or vpower whatever the hell else they claim...

 

No that's not always the case. My family is from rural alaska and there were only two distributor options. Some distributors deal in low grade fuel, such as lower octane ratings. Some gas stations pump low octane fuel in the high grade tank. All kinds of crap that makes you wish you had a knock sensor and table switching in case you get a bad tank of fuel. I personally fuel up at name brand stations in the miata because I know they have to buy from an expensive *** distributor that should have high grade fuel. Nothing is perfect but all gas stations are privately owned, though they are usually corporately supported. I hate the oil industry in that sense.

 

i would have done D too man. there are way to many peices of crap in this world, i dont want to be another one.

 

I think even though you're a gentleman about the situation, the station is still legally obligated to charge you the lowest advertised price once the transaction has taken place. in this case you can't really give the gas back so.... oops.

maybe you should have brought the truck back and THEN told them?

 

D. You did the right thing

 

D

Years ago I was paying off a jewelry account. I interrupted a clerk from a personal phone call and she was clearly very annoyed. I paid the last off w/ cash and received $20 back in change rather than the $10 I expected. I remember thinking 'God she's making this tough.' I turned around and tried to give her the $20 back anyway but she was back on the phone. Annoyed, she took the $20 and gave me back two $10s. I left w/ the extra $10. Integrity has limits.