For the second time in a little over a month, I have chosen “regular” gas at the pump and the receipt showed that I had received “plus” gas, one grade up (with an obviously higher price). The first time it happened, it was at a station that I do not usually use. The owner there said that he believed that I had mistakenly pushed the wrong button. I KNOW that I had chosen the correct button. It had even shown the correct per gallon price! Now, today, I went to a gas station that our family uses on a regular basis and guess what? This happened AGAIN!
Is there anybody who has had this happen to them or someone they know? Does anybody have any idea what might be going on? No, I am 100% sure that I pushed the correct button both times!
You might want to notify the state board that regulates the pumps. There is a little sticker on each pump showing when it was last inspected. If you can remember which specific pump you used, even better.
The final price is the same price as what is on the receipt. The issue is that although I selected regular gas (yesterday it was $2.33/gallon), the machine ended up charging $2.60/gallon for plus gas. Again, this is the second time this has happened: first, at the one station a few weeks ago, and yesterday at another station.
Does the price show after you make the selection, but before it starts pumping? If so, then stay alert to that, and should there be a repeat, you can address it immediately with the people at the gas station.
Definitely call your state weights and measures office. My brother-in-law works for our state in that department and that would shut down a gas station till corrections were made. If it’s doing it to you, it’s doing it to others.
Is there a way to document that you are pushing the correct button? Phone camera or video? A video might make for better documentation of the entire gas transaction.
Right now it is pretty much your word against theirs. I would recommend to anyone pumping gas that they check the display after hitting the button to make sure that the price/gallon is the one you chose. I have to admit that on most gas pumps it is very difficult to hit the wrong button, most of them have big square buttons and the cheapest grade is usually on the left (back in the old days,you had either separate pumps, or the multi select ones had a rotary dial that could be easy to mess up). If this happens again, if it comes up wrong when you hit the button, take a picture and then get the attendant before pumping any gas, once you pump gas they are going to assume you choose plus and are claiming this to try and get plus at the regular price. If you say you hit regular, and it shows the plus price but you didn’t pump any gas, they can’t assume that.
I agree with others, if you think either station was cheating you, you should call the state department of weights and measures, they may send someone around to the offending station to see what happens (and it would be good if you remember what pump it was, like “it was the 1st pump on the second island”), it could be others have complained. I have to admit, if the stations in questions pump any volume of gas, if the owner tampered with the pumps like that they would be foolish, because it is likely more than one person would notice and complain, and they don’t fool around when owners try to cheat customers…and the odds of two stations doing that quite honestly would be pretty small, for the same reason. Usually when gas stations cheat customers it is in things like disabling the functionality that adjusts for the outside temperature, where it reports X gallons but you only got Y (where X>Y), or where they put regular in the premium tank and charge for premium, because customers basically won’t notice (obviously, if you are empty and the pump says you took 20.5 gallons and the tank only holds 18,you would know something is up).
I would hope that .27/gallon is not the difference between cash and credit card.
Strange that it happened at 2 different stations. Were they a part of the same chain? Same owner? I would watch very carefully and document. The state would be very eager to see this.
That’s really weird.
I just got gas yesterday, and the pump indicates what I am paying per gallon while it is pumping.
I would take a photo.( it also is less when paying cash or with a debit card, but only $.10 per gallon)
Ah, this is when I am glad to live in one of the two states where you cannot pump your own gas
But that doesn’t mean we don’t have cheats at gas stations. We used to go to a gas station when we had to travel to a town north of us for business. Twice, we caught the owner stopping short by a couple of dollars that we requested . He still charged the $20 , but only pumped $18…I called the town’s weights and measures to file a complaint.
If it had happened once, I wouldn’t be suspicious, but making the same " mistake " again was use not believable IMO
There are slip ups everywhere. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes they may have keyed in the wrong code accidentally or hadn’t updated prices in the computer to match the ones on the shelves.
Just yesterday, I bought some plants from a small nursery, that has one person write up your purchases, then you take it inside( just the slip) to be rung up.
It seemed off, but since I didn’t have my purchases with me, I couldn’t check it.
I paid, but then carefully doubled checked the prices and found I had been written up for 7 of one kind, when I only had 5. I didn’t want to hassle with taking it back in to get a refund, so I just grabbed two more of the same kind.
That I suspect was on purpose, as I only bought 7 plants all together, and the 7 on the slip was definitely a 7.
Irritating, as I liked that nursery.
@emeralkitty-
Yeah, slip ups happen, but I doubt what happened to the OP was that the price in the computer hadn’t been adjusted. Gas prices have been dropping, but usually the difference between plus and regular is 15-20c/gallon, and gas prices haven’t been dropping that much so I doubt it was regular was 2.40 one day and 2.25 the next.
Don’t lose sleep. With a smart phone, take a video of yourself getting gas at the same station and pump as before. (Smart phone because it’s unobtrusive and would look like you’re reading email.). Then get a close up of the receipt. If it’s the same error as before, you can rest easy because you have an iron clad case. If there is no error, you can rest easy that they corrected whatever programming caused the problem.
I’ve been meaning to call our weights and measures bc their is a (yucky) gas station that just happens to be the only one near where I work and sometimes you HAVE to use it…but “oddly” my tank always takes more gas there than anywhere else.
