First Day Back

[Gaki]

First day back at the gas station and I had a few speshul people already.

Most of them were just snobby when I asked them "Sorry, how much?" for how much they wanted on a pump. Sorry but I don't think you want me to type in fifty when you meant fifteen. Just a thought.

No.

This woman comes up to the register and the first thing she wants is a gasoline payment form. These are for those emergency times when a person comes in distraught because they pumped gas and now they realized they forgot their wallet. They have to fill out one of these forms so they'll know that they have to come in and pay us so we don't sic the cops on them. They are NOT for people who "just don't have enough money for gas so I'll just fill one out." No. It doesn't work that way. She hadn't even PUMPED ANY GAS, she just wanted a payment form up front and she asked for it like she'd DONE IT BEFORE. Which is a total no-no. We of course told her no, we can't do that willingly, it is for emergencies only. After that she asked if she could just push the pay inside button and then fill one out. No. Again. You've already ruined your chances for that. You can't do that. We cannot do it willingly.

So she gets all pissy and then calls her father or some older man and shoves the phone into CW's face. He politely tells the man that no, he cannot take a credit card over the phone, no he will not risk his job. We can do no business over the phone. I dunno how the man took it but the woman didn't take it smoothly at all, she tapped her toes, pshed, and sighed, and whined about how she had to go ALL THE WAY somewhere. Well sah-ray Miss Princess of the World, you gotta have MONEY to get gas. Kthxbai.

I think our manager might have called the surrounding stores to warn them. Hopefully he did.

Hey you, in the silver Saturn...

Oh hey, you might wanna pay for that gas you just stole. Why? Oh maybe 'cause I got your license plate, sucka. Didn't think there'd be so many people waiting at the exit to get out of the parking lot didja? Well unfortunately for you I run fast, and the guy behind you is a regular and knows your license plate number too.

I can't help but do a little touchdown dance and sing that song from YouTube. "We gon' fiiiind you, we gon' fiiiiiind you!"

On the lighter side of things...

Everyone was glad to see me back, the regs I mean, my coworkers have been celebrating since I told them I'd be back on facebook. Everyone's been giving me great compliments on my hair (it's massively different and massively AWESOME), even non-regulars have mentioned it as being cute. It feels good to get random compliments.

[hinakiba777]

Question what would happen is someone ran into your gas station and said; "Hi, I'm on a long trip back home and have run out of money. Could I please get a gasoline payment form?!"

I know I personally wouldn't fill up if I was broke, but if I could get some sort of IOU on my gas that would be great.

I have often been stuck with an empty tank and money cash. Usually because whoever has the gas money spent it on comic books or something dumb. In the end we usually figure something out, but i'm just curious.

[Gaki]

Question what would happen is someone ran into your gas station and said; "Hi, I'm on a long trip back home and have run out of money. Could I please get a gasoline payment form?!"

We would ask them if they have any other method of payment (debit/credit card/check) other than cash. We CANNOT fill out a payment form for say out-of-state drivers. Our police have no authority over out-of-staters and therefore we can't catch them if they never pay us back. It's a tricky business.

If they were in-state and they had ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO PAY US then I'd actually have to call my manager and ask. That, to me, seems like a case-by-case issue dealt with by a manager, but if it's for an out-of-state plate/Driver's License then the answer would be "absolutely not."

[Mytical]

Wow, never heard of anything like the 'I forgot my money' form. Of course, I've never tried to fill up without some form of payment..and I always check my wallet before pumping gas.

[dougall]

We had an ex employee fill up his tank then come in and demand a fuel payment form he ended up getting someone to pay over the phone for him after he reported us to the police from the counter for not allowing him to be a deadbeat. As it was a civil matter the police could not do much but I did point out that if he drove off without paying that would make it a criminal matter and they would be able to sort it all out then.

He may have had better luck if he had only put a few pounds in and had not left in unfortunate circumstances.

[Twinblade]

At the local gas station I tend to go to, if you realize after you have pumped that you don't have enough to pay they will ask for your Drivers license to hold until you come back with money. I had to do it once, and let me just tell you, I ALWAYS PREPAY now.

[Mr Hero]

So if cops have no authority over out of state people, what happens in the case of a drive-off with out-of-state plates?

[Miss Maple Leaf]

So if cops have no authority over out of state people, what happens in the case of a drive-off with out-of-state plates?

I'm guessing that they have no authority once the people have left the state, but while they're still in the state the cops can still get them. After all, they'd be able to nail the drivers for things like speeding in that state, right? They should be able to nail the drivers for theft of gas too.

[XCashier]

Well sah-ray Miss Princess of the World, you gotta have MONEY to get gas. Kthxbai.

So, she deliberately set out to get a tankful of gas without bringing any form of payment? How stupid/entitled can you get?!

Oh hey, you might wanna pay for that gas you just stole. Why? Oh maybe 'cause I got your license plate, sucka.

To quote Nelson Muntz, "HA ha!" Nope, don't feel a bit sorry for these thieving jerks. Nice job putting the kibosh on them!

[parresa]

At the local gas station I tend to go to, if you realize after you have pumped that you don't have enough to pay they will ask for your Drivers license to hold until you come back with money.

I'm pretty sure this is illegal (because it's illegal to drive without your license on you and they would be forcing you to commit a crime by taking your license). At my store we aren't allowed to hold anything of the customer's if they forget money. They also aren't supposed to leave to go get money although for a regular I would let them. We ask them to call someone to help them pay and they have to stay there, and we can't take transactions over the phone either. It doesn't seem to come up much here though. For a non-regular I guess I would take their plate.

I really can't tell if my company cares about drive-offs and missing gas payments or not though. If they did all the pumps would be pre-pay and they aren't (we lose hundreds of dollars a month in drive-offs (one month almost a thousand dollars). We have 12 pumps and the outside ones that are hard to see used to be pre-pay only but now they aren't. They threaten us about drive-offs but nobody ever gets fired, written up sometimes. Also even with a plate number and full description I've heard that my company never tries to reclaim the money.

It's hard to watch 12 pumps. I'm really good at it (I can tell when someone is going to do it, it's all about checking any pump that has someone climbing into the driver's seat) but lots of people just aren't. Most of the time it's because the cashier forgot to ask them if they had gas outside when checking them out (and the customer forgot they had gas too). Other times they thought they used their card but it didn't work at the pump (although I am a little skeptical about this, the pumps make it pretty clear that your card didn't work and the loud voice booming from the sky "HELLO PUMP 6 WE'LL SEE YOU INSIDE TO PAY WHEN YOU'RE DONE PUMPING" and the display saying "Please pay cashier"... I don't know.) And then you get a few people who do it on purpose but not too many which surprises me considering how expensive gas is.

And of course our company says never chase down a car, but I've had management tell me to step outside and wave them down and get the plate number (although since they don't recover money from plate numbers I have to wonder what the point is aside from possibly endangering me). There was one occassion where I said to my manager, "Hey that car is driving off!" and afterward she yelled at me saying that if a car drove off I had to tell her and one of us had to go outside after it. How is what I did not precisely what you told me to do? I had a line and you were doing nothing, so maybe YOU should have gone outside if someone had to go out there? Anyway in those situations I just use my own judgement since the policy seems to be very confusing. I'm not getting run over for anyone.

Well I rambled a bit there, sorry.

[Sleepwalker]

Hmm. The one time my debit card was randomly declined, they let me go with a simple time limit- 1 hour to come back with payment, or they'd contact the police.

[Caractacus_Potts]

I'm pretty sure this is illegal (because it's illegal to drive without your license on you and they would be forcing you to commit a crime by taking your license). At my store we aren't allowed to hold anything of the customer's if they forget money.

I was pretty irresponsible as a teenager. I like to think I have grown out of it.

One time I pumped some gas and then I realized I had my wallet but I didn't have any money (or debit card/credit card, etc.). I went in and told the guy and asked if I could leave my drivers license with him while I went to get money to pay for the gas (and he agreed to do so).

I wasn't really worried about getting into trouble for not having my license on me. Like I said I was pretty irresponsible back then and I had been pulled over several times when I did not have my license on me. The police always just asked for my SS number and ran that instead, verifying that I did have a valid license and there were no wants or warrants out for me. Never even got a ticket of a verbal warning about not having the license (although that was years ago, times may have changed and/or it may have been particular to my state - it was still illegal back then, just not enforced).

On the other hand, when a bartender tried to confiscate my DL because he thought it was a fake ID I did use the, “You know it’s illegal for me to drive without my driver’s license?” line on him. Wound up having to call the cops to get my DL back.

[Trishlovesdolphins]

Wow, never heard of anything like the 'I forgot my money' form. Of course, I've never tried to fill up without some form of payment..and I always check my wallet before pumping gas.

You can't even pump here without either prepaying or swiping your card at the pump.