To clarify, “…with regard to the former, I would still pay if I could, but if I literally didn’t have the money, I wouldn’t feel culpable.”
The latter wouldn’t be an issue because I wouldn’t do it.
When I was 18 and manning a self serve station booth on the overnight shift, I kept a five gallon can with me. After each customer, I’d drain the hose into the can. At end of shift I’d empty the can into my car. I’d go months without buying gas.
I don’t get all the questions. The guy said he was a college student, not exactly flush, and needed a bit of gas so he wouldn’t run out before payday. Might have said to the attendant he wanted one gallon, so she tried to set the pump on 3.10, the current price. But made a mistake and punched in 3100 instead of 310. Not the same kind of error as asking for $10 worth and punching in $32.57, which would be a genuine head scratcher.
All of that is pretty simple to figure out.
I can understand that question. I live in small town Wisconsin and pretty sure if one of the two gas stations in town asked you to pay for your gas BEFORE you pumped everyone would drive two blocks to the other. And the owner of said station would be vilified in the eyes of his neighbors. If you have no trust in me then I’ll do business with the man that does.
Funny story about “pre pay”. My brother moved to Southern California after high school and moved back to hometown after nearly twenty five years. His second day here we headed out to look at a place he was thinking of buying and stopped for gas. I went in to get coffee not noticing he was right behind me. He tried to tell Wendy he wanted twenty dollars on pump four. She said there’s nothing on pump four. He said “I know. You haven’t put it on yet.” Wendy says " Look here sonny I’m less then a year from retirement and got a bad hip. I have this job so I can sit on this stool. If you think I’m gonna hobble out to some youngster’s truck to pump gas your out of your fucking mind."
My brother didn’t know what to say or do. They stared at each other for about ten seconds before I busted out laughing and explained the clash of cultures.
Doesn’t matter if the attendant didn’t put the stop limit on the pump, OP only paid for $3.10 of gas, but took $31.00. OP is a thief. There’s no honest simple mistake here. He knew that he was putting more than he paid for into his tank, he kept doing it and then left without paying for it.
The poor college student defense doesn’t fly either. Being poor isn’t a defense to steal.
You know, there’s a good chance the attendant charged $31.00 on your credit card. Nowadays, with touch screen cash registers, authorizing $XX.XX amount of fuel automatically charges you for it. Did you check the receipt?
$3.10 sounds like he was scrounging in the center console to find enough cash to get him to where ever he was going next (look! a dime!), not a credit/debit card.
Either that or he knew that most cash value entering type machines have not only a 0 button, but a 00 button. Most prepay transactions being an even dollar amount, the attendants are in the habit of hitting the 00 button, after the whole dollar amount, and took a chance that after hitting the 3, then the 1… habit kicks in and he may hit the 00, instead of the 0. especially he was busy.
Could OP please explain, how he knew he was getting far more gas then paid for, and kept pumping, but feels it HONESTLY is not their fault?
You sort of owe it because you knew it, unless you needed that gas for morally good reasons - i.e. God provided for you to advance the cause of Love. But you don’t owe it NOW, but when you can pay as you expressed your limited finances, going beyond that in demand to pay plays to human curiosity and is unfair and unethical to use as a ploy to sell more gas, it is essentially entrapment as you expressed that you only wanted a certain amount, which they exceeded against your stated request.
Heads up: this is not an actual thing.
I agree the OP has an obligation to pay back the money. Our own integrity and honesty are one of the few things we can control in our life. If I make a promise than I keep it. Its how I have chosen to live my life. My parents and grandparents were the same way.
I don’t agree the OP was an illegal drive off. A requirement to prepay at the pump makes that impossible. Yes, over $27 in gas was taken and not paid. That will come out of the clerk’s paycheck unless the OP voluntarily pays.
Anyone put 3 quarters in a Coke machine and get two sodas? Same idea. You prepaid and extra product got dispensed. Same thing happened at the gas pump except its a clerk’s error and much more money.
-
It’s okay to steal for morally good reasons? WTF? I’m sure that there is probably some exception that I could get comfortable with, i.e. save someone’s life; to stop a greater injustice; none of which was presented by the OP.
-
It’s okay to establish your own credit terms, even those not offered by the seller? I need all the trimmings for Thanksgiving. I can’t afford it now, and the local Kroger doesn’t offer a payment plan, so I’ll just take this turkey and cranberry and pay them after I get my Christmas bonus. Sorry it doesn’t work that way.
-
Not every gas station has auto-shut-off gas pumps. And those that do, put them in as a loss prevention mechanism. They are not there as a means of “keep pumping” and any extra you get is free. It’s not entrapment. The buyer should have only pumped what he paid for or intended to pay for.
OP is a thief.
If the pump doesn’t shut off at the amount requested, there’s no point of having to PRE-pay. Pre-pay means I give the guy a fiver and the pump automatically slows down and shuts off at the $5 mark. If it doesn’t, people can pay $5 and fill their 20-gallon tank…and if people can do that, you might as well just have them pay after they pump, because dishonest people can easily drive off with gas they didn’t pay for.
This was the fault of the gas station. The OP is not a thief, he’s the victim of someone else’s mistake…and as a result, he’s now in the bad position of having to either come up with cash for gas he didn’t want to purchase, or living with it.
The best answer might be to go in, ask for the manager, tell him or her what happened, hand over your information, and offer to pay the difference when you can. That way they get their money, and you don’t have to scrounge up cash before you planned to do so.
A: You pay for it.
No cash? Sign up for their gas credit card, sign for it all, pay the bill in full when it comes & never use that card again.
Buck up and pay for it. And be eternally thankful that you didn’t order a bottle of wine that cost “thirty-seven fifty.”
He’s a victim??? He saw that it went past the 3.10, and kept pumping until it quit at 31.00. The pump finally quit or he would still be pumping. He watched it go from 3.11 all the way to 31.00 He also knew at 2.80 that it was not slowing down to stop on it’s own.
He knew had had not paid for that much gas but kept pumping. Either the station or the attendant is out 27.90, and the person who got all the extra gas is a victim. WOW!
Victim… I do not think it means what you think it means.
Morally, I think the OP owes the money. Particularly if the cashier is going to be on the hook for error.
Legally, though (IANAL)? He went in and paid $3.10 in exchange for gasoline. The store’s automated system provided him gasoline. That the pump displayed $31.00 I’m not sure is completely relative - back when I was a youth and the first gas crisis hit, pumps couldn’t charge more than $0.999 for gas, so the pump displayed half the cost. It’s of course not particularly reasonable that the pump is off that much, but not necessarily his fault.
I wonder if this similar to not having to pay for unsolicited items received in the mail?
Let’s say this wasn’t gas, but the blocks of ice in the ice-box outside. You go inside, pay for a block of ice, and the attendant gives you a key. Once you open the box, you could take out many more blocks of ice than you paid for. No one is watching (other than the cameras). But do you?
How does this being gas be any different? Just because the attendant (possibly) has a more granular control of amount dispensed.
The OP clearly states that he intentionally took more gas than he paid for. He’s certainly morally responsible for it. And it certainly looks, smells, and walks like it was legally theft.
Wow, this thread got a lot more replies than i thought. So just a quick update i went back later on that day with a cousin’s credit card and the previous attendant was already gone, so i spoke to the attendant there and told him the story and he was like “wow, that was definitely her error but i’m glad that you came back, that is a very good thing to do, a lot of people would be like oh wow free gas!” (ironically) and yeah i ended up paying up the difference and calling it a day, it felt pretty good to get that off of my shoulders, after reading a few comments to get opinions it kinda rang to me that i should do the right thing, i appreciate and respect everyone’s opinions, whether if believed i was wrong or not. Again, it was all settled out, and the attendant that was there made a note for his manager.
TL;DR; OP did the right thing