Self service gas station, i asked the attendant for $3.10 of gas on my pump (college life is hard) and went back to my car to start pumping the gas. The pump kept going past $3.10 and i looked around in shock but kept pumping the gas, eventually stopped at $31.00 and then i understood what happened, the attendant put in the wrong amount on her end. after it finished pumping i kinda stood there for a while, then sat in my car for like 10 seconds and then drove off. My mom is on my ass about it and thinks the police are gonna show up at my house at any minute but it honestly isn’t my fault and i definitely dont have the money to make up the difference, what do ? 
Dig up the money from somewhere and pay it. Why in the hell would you put less than a gallon of gas in your car?
And yes, you’re probably noted as a pump-n-run.
Edit: Yeah, I initially read it as the attendant giving you too much gas, but if you pumped it yourself, you’re probably going to be asked to pay for it, and it’d be better if you did it voluntarily. I don’t know how much effort gas stations put into hunting down people who don’t pay for gas, but it’s probably some.
Morally you should pay it. Legaly it was her fault and I doubt you could be held responsible.
Siphon out the excess, write an apology and stick it on the jug, drop it off at the station in the middle of the night.
And you kept pumping until you put $31.00 worth of gas in your car? How is that not your fault? I would have stopped pumping certainly before I even reached $4.00. You owe for the gas. You should make some arrangement to pay for it.
Pumps have this thing called a lever on the handle that will allow you to release it to stop the gas-flow. Crazy, huh? Despite the attendant’s mistake, you knowingly stole the extra gas.
You do what you think is smartest.
It takes about 10 seconds to pump $3.10 of gas, and you just stood there like a statue watching it pump for 10x that long? It is your fault, at least it’s your fault from the point you realized it was over $3.10, which should have been pretty early in the process.
Save up the $27.90 you owe the station, and go in and pay it. You have the gas, and are going to use it, so it isn’t costing you anything additional.
For $3.10 worth of gas, I just stand there and squeeze the handle myself. All you have to do is release your grip.
you guys are totally right, i’m gonna see if someone can lend me their credit card or some cash so i can pay the gas off, i rather not wait and see if im the one who’s in trouble.
When i pump gas, i use the mechanism that holds the lever in place, and then i go about cleaning my windows while the gas pumps. Sometimes i can finish the windows before the tank is full; other times the pump cuts off while i’m still squeegeeing.
Now, i nearly always buy gas using a credit card, so it automatically charges me for whatever gas i take. But i could imagine, under some circumstances, paying in cash and doing the same thing. As a hypothetical, do you think i should be held accountable if the attendant screwed up, and i got more gas than i paid for due to the fact that i had set the mechanism that holds the lever open?
Agreed.
Absolutely. You’re in charge of pumping the gas into your own car.
In that hypothetical, sure you could argue you were unaware the pump was still going past what you pre-paid for. However, that doesn’t fit the facts of this particular case. I’m only assuming all pumps have video surveillance.
Wait a minute. Implied in the OP is that the pump attendant has a way of limiting how much gas is exchanged for each transaction (i.e. something stops the pump at 3.10). Has that always been the case? I had no idea that existed.
Yes. They’ve been able to put “$5.00 on pump 4” for a heckuvalong time now.
Interesting. I haven’t paid in cash since the 90s and I always paid after I pumped (I think that is frowned upon these days). I have never needed to know this.
Where do you live? Everywhere I’ve bought gas (except Oregon I guess), using a card pumps until its full*, using cash pumps until the amount requested is gone or it’s full. So in these stations, the problem is initially absolutely the attendant’s error in moving a decimal. The OP is also in error, but it need not be outright theft.
I wonder if this is one of the cases where an effort to pay is rebuked because it isn’t feasible (“price check for two grapes”), but the OP should absolutely make a good faith attempt to fix it. Also, the attendant, unless an owner, could get in trouble for a non-balancing register.
*IIRC some cards set limits that people without huge SUVs and not with current prices will never hit, like $75 per swipe.
In this case it is the attendant’s fault and I highly doubt you could legally be held responsible.
However, the morally correct thing to do is to go back and offer to pay for the extra gas you took, especially since you noticed that it was going over and didn’t stop it.
Honestly, they’ll probably just say “We made an error, it’s on us.”
It’s not really an issue of whose fault it is. The question is, do you want to sell your integrity down the river for $28? That voice telling you it wasn’t right is called your conscience, and it’s bothering you enough to share here with us. Your integrity, along with your word, are things you control. It just makes you a much better person to maintain both in high standard. I’m not your Dad and I don’t want to sound lecturing or condescending, but if everyone just took the effort to “Do the right thing” in everyday life society would be so much better.