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?"
of course, the biggest theft will be from the government, who will demand their tax money no matter what.
BS ...not theft at all........if a store posts a price or puts that price tag on a product and I pick it up and take it too the checkout counter I get it at that price......this was nothing less..........the store managers comments ....” told them they were being dishonest “ is cow crap as well.
Stupid hurts (and is expensive at times) !
It is dishonest. It’s no different than if a person at the register accidently gives you too much change or if they ring up something at an incorrectly low price.
Those are errors that honest people bring to the attention of workers.
No different than when I have corrected a cashier as they wrong up a price incorrectly in my favor.
It’s how it is in Fairbanks. We pick and choose our behavioral boundaries.
So you’re telling me that if you see a pile of items at the store, each of which are marked $99.99, and you dig through the pile and find one that is marked $9.99, you think that it’s perfectly acceptable to try and buy that item for $9.99, even though you know good and well the actual price is $99.99?
Tell me, do you think it is dishonest to change price tags on items? If so, what is the difference between the two situations?
There’s a survey at your link asking people what they’d do in this situation. Results:
Fill up and drive away 66%
Tell the clerk about the obvious mistake 14%
Fill up, then tell the clerk 17%
Drive away and avoid the situation entirely 3%
I am perplexed as to whether it is actually theft. All used credit cards to obtain the fuel at the posted pump price. So it’s not like they didn’t pay. The classical meaning of theft.
Unethical is true, but, I don’t think it is stealing.
Or 97 dollars a barrel for crude oil. Two dollars a gallon for something you pump out of the ground by the millions of gallons a day.
That theft is Saudi, this theft was American against his neighbor.
Not at all....employee set the price (on purpose or by accident) , consumers paid with credit cards with their personal data vs any tampering with pumps etc etc . No dark of night robbery. IMHO not a snowballs chance in hell of recovering their loss due stupidity or ignorance of an employee trusted to set such controls.
And they'll be saying, "Yeah, gramps, that's really interesting" as they take off in their dark-matter powered hover scooters.
Unrealistic scenario fabricated to promote your opinion.....modern bar codes and RFID’s etc will determine the price at the counter. Happens many times.
637:6 Theft of Lost or Mislaid Property. – A person commits theft when:
I. He obtains property of another which he knows to have been lost or mislaid, or to have been delivered under a mistake as to the identity of the recipient or as to the nature or amount of the property, without taking reasonable measures to return the same to the owner, and
II. He has the purpose to deprive the owner of such property when he obtains the property or at any time prior to taking the measures designated in paragraph I.
You are legally right and morally wrong.
123.456 opinions.....everyone has one.
If a store employee miskeys the programming so that the scanner rings up the hundred dollar product for a buck, even though the sign at the product says $100, should you still take it?
Supply and demand are theft??
How much do you pay for your decaf latte?
Sure you were. :-)
Okay, here's one. You are denied soup. Then you find soup recipes in your armoire. Is it unethical to publish the secret soup recipes and shut down the business?
Another one: You are denied service in a Mayan store. Is it unethical to change all the price tag or remove all the dissicants?
Ponder THAT one for a while!
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