Maybe somebody could Photoshop a gasoline jug into this classic pic.
Posted on 12/10/2007 10:08:19 AM PST by John Cena
(AP) Dozens of drivers made a mad rush for cheap gas after a station employee accidentally changed the price to 33 cents a gallon.
An employee closing Trig's Minocqua Shell for the night mistakenly entered the price of a gallon of gasoline as 32.9 cents instead of $3.299 on Monday night.
He left about 10 p.m., but drivers could still use their credit cards to buy gas.
Word of the bargain spread fast in the rural northern Wisconsin community, with 42 people buying 586 gallons of gas in an hour and 45 minutes. One person had pumped 27 gallons and two purchased 18 gallons.
Local police saw the horde at the station and called store manager Andrea Reuland, who went to the station and pushed the emergency stop.
"There were cars two deep at each of my pumps," said Reuland, who knew many of the drivers and told them they were being dishonest _ the main store sign had the correct price.
"I was very upset that there's that many dishonest people," she said. "They knew there was a problem, and they took advantage of an employee's mistake and I think that's terrible."
The employee, who has been there for about six months, had changed the gas prices 25 times in the past six months.
"It was an honest mistake," Reuland said. "I could have done it."
Area residents were still talking about it Friday morning.
"Was it you guys?" a woman in the station asked Reuland. "Why do I always miss the good stuff?"
What CC provider gives a merchant all that info? You usually get an authorization number and have to backtrack off of that, thru the CC company if a cardholder disputes a transaction or wants to make a disputed return.
The SIGN at the station clearly says the price is $3.299. So if the pump is incorrectly set to $0.329, but the sign clearly says $3.299, then the person who knowingly and deliberately pumps the gas to take advantage of an opportunity to obtain gas at approximately one-tenth of its price is stealing.
Just like my example with the X-Box. If you were buying a $329.95 X-box, (having looked at the price tag to verify the price) but the cashier rang it up for $3.29 it would be stealing to walk out of the store having paid only $3.29 for something you knew was priced at 100 times the amount.
How do you know the girl who owned the sweater was very nice. She might have been a b*tch!
That information is only x’d out on the receipt, to keep someone from picking the receipt out of the trash and using the full card number to make purchases online or over the phone. The merchant’s records, as well as the card processor’s, include the full card numbers and verification information.
Better yet, just hit their cards with an adjustment transaction to charge the balance of the price of their transactions.
Maybe somebody could Photoshop a gasoline jug into this classic pic.
At work right now and just checked ‘merchant copies’ ours are x’d (auth. code used for disputes). Do you swipe the cards or just use as phone orders (keying info into the CC machine)? That could be the difference as our recpts would have a signature.
According to the article:
Word of the bargain spread fast in the rural northern Wisconsin community, with 42 people buying 586 gallons of gas in an hour and 45 minutes. One person had pumped 27 gallons and two purchased 18 gallons.The action of people making after-hours trips to buy gas because the word spread about the error on the pump also shows intent to commit fraud.Local police saw the horde at the station and called store manager Andrea Reuland, who went to the station and pushed the emergency stop.
No, some consumers discovered that due to an error they were able to "purchase" the product at one-tenth of the advertised price. However, their transaction is documented so that the seller should be able to process an adjustment to collect the unpaid balance of each purchase.
Disagree.......I get a printed receipt for all my purchases....even from the gas pumps these days . Change my CC and THEY become the thief...........
I must have missed the fact that the station put up a sign that said the price was erroneous......;o)
Hey VRWC .....Acme Stop & Rob has cheap gas........are you now a criminal for purchasing it ?
If the shoe is on the other foot, the merchant makes a mistake so that the transaction is 10 times the amount it was supposed to be (but that is what is printed on your receipt) and you subsequently discover the mistake, you are on the phone immediately to have them adjust the transaction to the correct amount. If the merchant insists that the amount on the printed receipt is the amount, your next call is to the CC company to insist that the CC company adjust the charge via some sort of dispute process. Either way, an adjustment credit to reflect the correct transaction amount is very easy. An adjustment debit would also be very easy. It might be that the merchant has to have a letter sent to each customer first, indicating that the transaction that occured at the specific time between 10PM and Midnight for the specific quantity of gas was incorrectly charged at a price of $0.329 rather than the posted price of $3.299 and that a charge in the amount of $xx.xx to make up the difference would be applied. But with notification that a correction was being processed, the transaction would be easy to accomplish and the retailer would be perfectly within his rights to do so.
I’d never buy an XBOX !
OK,
I understand that....and yes, I’ve spoken up when something was rung up wrong, in both cases.
However, at the gas pump...
I honestly couldn’t tell you what my gas station is charging for gas. But that’s me.
No, adjustments are common and legal.
I also have some guilt in a similar situation, I went to a local body shop to get a new tire and rim mounted on my car after I had a blowout. I noticed they never charged me for the tire and I kept my mouth shut. But I like to think God got me back as a couple of months later I popped that tire after running over a curb.
"There were cars two deep at each of my pumps," said Reuland, who knew many of the drivers and told them they were being dishonest -- the main store sign had the correct price.If the main store sign has the correct price, but the transaction rings up at one-tenth of the price are you one of those people who requires a sign to explain that there was an error?
Hey VRWC .....Acme Stop & Rob has cheap gas........are you now a criminal for purchasing it ?
If the price is clearly posted and I find a way to pay one-tenth of the posted amount and deliberately do so, then yes that would be a fraudulent act. And if the clerk at Best Buy tried to charge me $3.29 for the Xbox360 I was buying for my son (knowing that the price was $329.95), I would point out his mistake to him.
Too the consumer......not after the fact / sale from the consumer.
Adjustments are instituted by the consumer...usually regarding faulty mdse., wanting to make a return on a final sale, etc. There is no way (I can think of) that a merchant gets an ‘oops’ from the CC companies and gets to add a charge on. That is why mom/pop type operations are adverse to phone orders...too much opportunity for a dishonest cust. to dispute a legitimate charge.
If a car dealer puts an ad in the paper selling a 2008 Escalde for 580.00 instead of 58,000 is he required to sell it at the printed price? Or better yet if you go to the pump and instead of $3.29 you are charged $329.00 is that to bad for you?
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