In the early 80’s I forgot to pay for gas at a station we visited every Sunday ( the kids and I were talking about a place we were visiting that day and I totally forgot to go in and pay) and the owner didn’t send cops after us - (no credit card readers then) somehow the following Sunday it occurred to me I might not have paid for the gas - I know sounds weird- but it’s true. I filled up and went into station and asked if I forgot to pay the week before and manager said yes I asked how much and I paid it. I asked why he didn’t report it - he said- you come here all the time- I figured you forgot - so I waited knowing you’d probably be back today. Those were the days!
It still happens with small businesses. A local brew supply shop will often just let me take my order and pay later since they know I'm good for it. I've had to remind them of past purchases, since they got super busy while moving locations. I was like, guys, please, let me give you money. 🤣🤣
Around that same time, in Germany, I was president of a club. We had weekly meetings at a particular italian restaurant. I would get so wrapped up in club business that I repeatedly forgot to pay my bill. Almost every week! It almost became a running joke between the owner and myself and the entire club knew about it. It was actually kinda hilarious. For all of us, including the owner!
You know that has happened to me like a few months ago. I paid for something in a drive thru and I guess the payment didn't go through and they didn't notice and neither did I until I saw that that card was declined later that day. I know I could have just left it at that but since I go there all the time I figured I might as well make it right so I did the next day.
She would have rolled on til the next software update at least, or until someone else got greedy and got it busted. How many others probably got free fuel like this? Lol
She would have got cut off as these things dont stay around forever. Find a legal loophole and hit it as gard as you can. I gave my friendss, family, neighbors, distant cousins $.01 a gallon gas for 18 months by exploiting brookshires gas. The program would have been updated anyways. Better to take $20k from them than $2k.
@@Vykk_Draygo do you think it is unethical for corporations to hire armies of people to try and wring every last cent they can put of you? If not your moral compass is broken when your betters find a way of doing the same to them.
I suspect if she hadn't got greedy and "sold" the use of the card, and had just carried on filling her own car when she had to, this wouldn't have come to light.
I had this happen to me. I went to Dollar General in my local town, got a gas card for 5$. Swiped the card put the nozzle in my tank and locked it. Got in my car to wait because it was cold. After a little bit of time browsing my phone I thought to myself “man that’s taking a long time”. Thinking there must be air bubbles in the line making it slow. After I heard it click I went to put the nozzle up and saw on the screen it said like 65$ worth of gas and my tank was full. Checked my bank account and it said 5$ was withdrawn. Went inside to explain what happen and the employee could not care less. Dude was like “that’s weird, I guess you got a full tank man”. Never happened again.
Exactly. You felt compelled to be honest and were rewarded by a guilt-free full tank for $5. It's the little things that make life great! I do wonder what repercussions fell upon the employee. If any. And if he cared.
My personal rule is that if I genuinely try to correct an error in my favor, and the person I report it to declines to correct the error, then it's mine and I don't feel guilty. If I were you I'd have gotten a few more of those $5 gas cards and used them on the same pump.
Bingo. This is why I never understood these get rich quick schemes people fall for. If you have a secret that made you boat loads of money, why tf would you tell anyone about it?
Analogy ~Just because someone found a way to get gas without paying on the spot, doesn’t mean it’s legal. If you find a door to a business open in the middle of the night, doesn’t mean, free shopping spree.
Not only that but business overcharge costumers including utilities and you don’t have the prosecution going after them. If you don’t like it you have to sue , using your own pocket and risk and even if you win you have to pay your own lawyer. This should be a civil matter. My problem with the woman is that she make money reselling the gas, if she hates not done that I will let her go.
Many many years ago, I had a CD with a local Savings and Loan. I decided to move the money elsewhere so went in and closed that CD and walked out with the $4500 that was in the account. Imagine my surprise when i decided to move banks about 3 years later, when the teller asked me if I also wanted to take my CD as well? I wasn't shady at all, I told her that I had closed that account almost 3 years ago. So long story short managers and accountants and all sorts of people got involved. 3 weeks later I got a call from the Branch Manager: "that money is all yours, we have no record that the CD was every closed". I went and got that $4500, as well as a letter from the branch Manager stating that very thing. Unsurprisingly, that Savings and Loan is no longer in business.
Yeah, I've have dozens of bank errors in just the last 10 years... never in MY FAVOR. Do the banks ever get prosecuted [excluding case when the settle for 6 hours of profit?]. I never see a bank CEO in cuffs. "Corporations are people" until they break the law. Still, nice $4500 bank error in your favor. When I was a teller, my credit union kept meticulous records and I can't imagine that, but they also eliminated time cards and even hourly employees were trusted to do this. As Bob, our CEO (RIP), said "I trust you with a drawer of $80k (I remember BEGGING my manager to move cash to the vault because my drawer was almost $200k- this was 2009, so almost $300k today), I think we can trust you to fill out a timesheet", he was right that we didn't rip off the credit union, but also a little wrong, HR & Bob sent out the occasional email reminding us to account for ALL hours worked (wage theft is so rampant we did it to ourselves), if you started 10 minutes late to finish something, you were expected to document it (pay yourself- no reason needed) and managers were told to be me vigilant. Before his death (he saved 4 people when their group went kayaking, although we were never told, PA records that kind on incident in a database- knowing was a great comfort), my dad worked in the largest credit union in PA, they treated him very well. I had 2 brainstem surgeries during COVID, lost my ability to walk, basically liked with him for 4 months and he helped me while working from home and pretending not to keep an eye on me. His boss worked around me even after he was forced to go back to work (he was only one of 2-3 people authorized to size mortgage checks- they weren't doing that from home- and one of them retired) TLDR: Corporations are an amoral (lack of morals, not immoral) crapshoot.
Actually this happened to a couple in Long Island NY. They sent their mortgage check to a bank that kept sending it back. The bank was bought by a bigger bank. They finally went in after the check was returned the third time and they received a letter from the bank stating they did not have a mortgage with them and they got a free house.
I mean they probably said it wasn't transferable, and since it wasn't issued to her then she's not going to be able to rely on any other terms and conditions.
When I got caught shoplifting this is what I did. “Show me the terms of conditions in the contract I signed where it says I cannot just take stuff” I said. They let me go and dropped all charges.
@@DiamondCake2 Shoplifting is by definition a criminal offence, there is no relevance to contract law whatsoever. If this story is true, which seems highly unlikely, then they couldn't be arsed to press charges, your completely spurious argument is obviously not what got you off or more intelligent criminals than you would have worked this out and just be helping themselves to everything.
The moral and societal contract has long been frayed and is now most openly dissolved between the US citizenry. Would I have had the same thought of "heck yeah, pump them dry" in the past when I could afford to live on $80K salary? Absolutely not. But now, I cannot even rent a 2 Bed 2 Bath 1200 sq ft. home with my fiance unless she works and makes $60K. Any glitch like this exploited by a corporation, business, or politician would be counted in their favor, but nary the peasants to find such a boon!!!
I wonder if they KNEW the gas was "disappearing" but did not investigate closely because they were worried it was leaking out. Which, if they KNEW was happening, means a VERY expensive EPA visit, remediation, downtime, etc.
Very few gas stations own and maintain the tanks under their location, so it wouldnt have been at their expense (they probably even have insurance to cover any closures because of leaking tanks)
The "demo" mode is for pump maintenance (fixing leaking hoses or faulty nozzle shut off, etc.) and for calibration by regulators insuring that one gallon is dispensed as one gallon is charged to the customer. All pumps have the certification stickers. All "demo" transactions are metered, and the fuel dispensed is poured back into the holding tanks. They know when maintenance was done and when regulators visited and generally neither of those run "fill-ups". They knew that "demo" was the missing 7,000 gallons but just needed to find the one initiating that process.
I used to do that enforcement for the EPA. Our definitions of "VERY" might be different and it could depend on the circumstances but the EPA fine wouldn't be too large. If there was a real leak, the fix could be expensive and the cost of the lost product would probably be greater than the fine.
In the early 90s, a gas pump malfunctioned while I was pumping. I prepaid for $10, stuck the nozzle in, started pumping, and went around cleaning my windows. I didn't hear the pump click off, and when I checked, it had stopped counting at $10, but it was still pumping, and it stopped measuring how many gallons I pumped. I got a full tank for $10! I did go in and tell them the pump was malfunctioning, and I had no idea how much gas I pumped. They said don't worry about it, thanks for telling us.
Something like that was a "clear" malfunction, and at that moment they probably couldn't get to the inside readers that meter the actual flow, or stick the tanks, so yea they gave you the extra for free. Having been a manager at a gas station every morning we had to stick the tanks, (that checked for water and the height of the gas in the tank which you could translate into gallons with a chart in the office. Then once a week we would open the front cover of the gas pumps and there was another meter that showed how many gallons have actually flowed though that particular pump nozzle. So at least once a week, at the gas station our books had to all come out the same. Occasionally we would find a faulty pump and have to put it out of service. Another crazy but understandable thing we did was when raising the price of gas, we would change the outside signs first then change at the pump. When lowering the price we would change the pump first then the outside sign. That had something to do with false advertising, when they went to the pump it would be the lower price at the pump.
@@atomic66 Do realize that if your philosophy is to not help businesses fix problems they have dispensing their services, then you have no grounds for complaining when businesses do not help you fix problems you encounter receiving their services. At the end of the day, the gas station owner is just a regular guy like you and me trying to make a living. If the owner has screwed you over in the past, then I can understand wanting to screw him. But if he's done nothing but provided you with a convenient place to fill up on gas, then you should help him as much as he's helped you in the past.
Friend and I once had similar happen except it kept counting. He prepaid $20, cut it off around $40, they wanted him to pay the rest but neither of us had any money. Had to convince them to not call cops and let him go in later in week to pay. He did pay, but as "payback" he did put in a call to Nevada's Weights and Measures Division who is responsible for overseeing gas pumps here. :)
When machines screw up in favor of the company, nobody goes to jail and the customer has to fight like hell to try to get his money back; BUT when the machines screw up in favor of the customer, all of a sudden, it's a crime. Something wrong here.
Yep. Banks take money from customers all the time and nothing happens. In fact, when they DO face a fine, it is straight up less than what they gained from their illegal actions. Meanwhile if an individual does the same actions, they spend decades in prison.
Wrong. If a cash register machine screws up and opens in front of me I still don’t have the right to take all the cash inside that isn’t mine. That’s the moronic level of reasoning you’re putting forth.
My question is was it only this card or all reward cards. Some secret code put in the programmers to get themselves free gas and one of the cards slipped out.
@@BobWiersemaI once knew a programmer who did that. It wasn't gas, but something else that required a card and was automated. It was only his card number, the use of it didn't go into the logs, and he didn't share or abuse it. He'd been getting freebies for at least 5 years when I knew him. In the scheme of things, his use probably amounted to less than rounding, but it makes me wonder how many other coders have done something like that.
Demo mode is probably a legit feature of the pumps. Here in Wisconsin we have a state government body that goes around to all the gas stations and checks that when the pumps register a gallon has been pumped that an exact gallon comes out (they put inspection stickers on every pump I've seen in the state annually). That demo mode is probably for this exact purpose (I haven't witnessed these checks but I wouldn't be surprised if the pumped gas gets dumped back into the station's under ground storage tanks).
@@tomcarlson3913 That's done everywhere. Something about weights and measures compliance. And I'm almost positive that the testing agent doesn't just bypass they billing system and start pumping.
Said every hacker that has stolen your private information. It's not like they committed a crime they just exploited a loophole.. right? Caused thousands to get fired and with the PII stolen managed to steal tens of thousands if not more. But hey... it was a bug in the software that was exploited. How can a hacker be blamed for exploiting a glitch right?
If she wasnt aware of the error it wouldnt have been a crime. At best station could have tried to take her to court to recover the gas. But she bought the card from someone else knowing of the bug that clearly wans tintented and kept stealing the gad and even sold it to other people she knew exactly what was happening and that she was stealing it so now she might be going to jail
Another case of greedy crooks. She could have just used once a week or less and they may have never noticed a tank full missing occasionally. And I’ll bet she didn’t realize she had stole 7,000 gallons over that time period. But going as far as to sell the stolen gas. Wow! Deserved to get caught.
Most gas stations are independently owned (either a franchisee or an entirely independent gas station) and operate on razer thin margins. They notice if a Twinkie goes missing....you better believe they'd notice thousands of gallons of gas.
When I was 7 or 8 I overheard another kid in a store in the next isle asking his mom for something and she told him they couldn't afford it and he told her to just write a check. I guess I was a little more aware at that age because I thought to myself "That isn't how checks work".
@@paulperry7091 That's why there should be basic finance included in the K-12 curriculum. It doesn't take much time and it's something that everybody will need and use as an adult.
wtf are u even talking about. she was tracked due to a detection of loss revenue on gas, and since it was her rewards card that activated it, it was easily detectable that THIS PERSONS REWARD CARD POURED THIS MUCH GAS FOR 0 DOLLARS. telling a single soul doesnt freaking matter in this case. not only that, she could have kept filling up large gas cans and just selling the gas cheaper and no1 else knows where she gets the gas from, it STILL bites her in the ass. do you know why she only got away with it for less than a year? because book keeping is done then rechecked quarterly, to get a proper amount for tax time. if you have a bunch of gas missing without being paid for, and u just check whos bought the most gas ull find her near the top of the list. 7000 gallons is alot...
If it had happened just once by accident then she would be innocent, but she was repeatedly committing fraud and theft, in addition to profiting by the sale of stolen goods. That is a crime, and she deserves to be punished for it.
She thought it was a gift card! An unlimited gift card, like a free checking account, lol. I don't know if they still stick the tanks to see how much fuel is in them. I knew a guy in the 70's who had a electric fuel pump in his trunk next to the filler tube (behind the license plate) with a long hose and he would drop it down into the gas stations tank late at night and flip the switch on his dashboard to fill up. I don't think he ever paid for gas while owning that car!
The thing that pisses me off is when I go into a store or gas station and buy something like gas and put it into my car and offer to pay for it at the register and the clerk says I can not buy it because their machine is broke. I say here is the cash money what did you do before there were computers. They give a dumb look and say sorry they can’t help me and refuse to complete the transaction. You can’t fix stupid.
Nope. Others figure out thes things. Find a loophole and hit it as hard as you can. I got $.01 a gallon gas from brooshires for 18 months. As did all my firends, family and neighbors. I orefer 20k in benefits to 2k.
Not likely. We are in the era of software where they likely run reports/analytics to look for this type of exploit whether from customer or employee. It was only a matter of time.
When I was a younger man, the bank machine that was in the store that I worked at dispensed $5's and $20's. The Armored Car company that services that machine screwed up and put a container of $20's in the spot meant for $5's. So you would go and ask for $15 and get $60. The bank handled it the same as in Steve's story...Bank error in your favor.
Law is largely about intent, in that case the customers didnt do anything differently than they normally would have. This gal proved there was a certain way she had to do it to work.
I get that this isn't right and it's theft. I just hate that when an error favors the "customer" it's a crime, but when it favors the business (the overwhelming majority of these issues) it's just a simple mistake.
It's because, like the system in Psycho-pass, our system has trouble assigning blame to a group or system. It can only blame individuals. When you have a corporation everyone just points the finger to the next person.
My wife signed up at a bank where they are supposed to give you a $900 bonus for opening a checking and savings and having minimums and having direct deposit. 2 months later, called the help desk... "Oh the code wasnt entered by our employee when you opened your account." She went to the bank and they were able to resolve it, because apparently a "glitch" caused it to disappear. I wonder how many people just never collected the $300-$900 bonus.
@@oldgrizzlygamerNot always the best plan. Some years ago, my friend reported a glitch he found in a video game that gave players free stuff (that they usually had to pay for). He found it, then repeated the process to confirm how it worked, and then reported it. Game company response was to ban him from their platform for life. For months, he wondered if they were going to send the cops after him, but that never happened. Total value of that glitch was about $20, but he was sure it could be repeated endlessly.
Right. That is the store's problem, IMO. However, this isn't the same as mislabeled merchandise. She had to knowingly perform a special sequence of events to change the price of the fuel herself. That isn't a mistake, or a loophole - it's an exploit. It's theft and Steve explains why several times.
Yeah, that would be the store's problem. But this situation is equivalent to you getting to the self-checkout register with the TV, hacking the register so it gives you the TV for free, then leaving with it. It should also be pointed out that legally, the store is allowed to rescind your $150 TV purchase once it discovers the pricing error. Genuine mistakes are not contractually binding. Most stores opt not to enforce that right because the bad publicity that would generate exceeds the loss of a few hundred or few thousand dollars for just letting you keep the TV.
@@Hakuna_FrittataI think it's a stretch to say that swiping a card twice is an exploit. At a certain point it is up to the gas station to secure their system. I don't think it should be legally the same thing as shoplifting because it is understood that although you can physically pick up the merchandise you are expected to go to the register to pay. However, the pump normally charges you for gas. If you don't have permission to take the gas, the pump doesn't dispense it. Yes, common sense says that something is wrong with this picture and morally she should have asked about it, but I don't think it should be criminal for her to make use of their mistake.
It is, but if that label is only there because you printed it out and stuck it on and demanded the store honor it in spite of a different price being listed in public, that's a you problem.
Dood....the Zoo! Oh man, best station we ever had. Denton High, 1982, the back window of my 6.6 had a"Q102 Album Rock" sticker with the Zoo Nation elephant wings sticker above it. HOW MANY cars had that back then?
All the witnesses saying "Sally Smith let me use her card to fill up for $20". Forget about camera footage. They probably have that, too, then they can go back to Billy Bob Smith who gave her the card and prove the connection.
My buddy's dad did pressure testing on petroleum vessels and pipelines in side refineries. There was always fuel ⛽️ in the test rig when done. you could hold 500 gallons of fuel in the chamber. He would come home and we'd transfer 500 gallons to 10) 55 gallon drums. 😂funny thing they would give him new drums for nothing. Just a few dollars he always had 2 to 3 thousand gallons of fuel in 55 gallon drums sitting on pallets. 😂 The police, fire department city services all came and bought fuel..lol. they'd send a truck to pick up 4 barrels at a time..
We used to call it “Dipping the tank” when I worked at a marina in the mid 1970’s. Long wooden measuring stick that we painted a purple water finder product on the end so that if it turned red we knew that we had somehow gotten a bad delivery of gas that had water in it. Thanks for the memory!
This reminded me of one of our regular motorcycle rides from Melbourne up to Broken Hill in NSW. On the leg between Mildura and Broken Hill there was a small service station about halfway where everyone used to fill up as some bikes didn't have the range to cover the 300Kms in one ride. It was very popular among local riders until one time when I overheard the owner talking to a worker there saying (after using the stick) "We're getting a bit low on super (around 95 octane). Pump a few hundred litres of water into the tank." (To bring up the level of fuel.) After that episode, we made sure we carried enough fuel with us each time we made the trip and never stopped there again. I heard that they closed down a while later, I presume when the word got around and no-one stopped there any more.
@@olsmokey The reasons we dipped our tanks were for inventory control and to make sure we were NOT pumping water into the fuel systems in our customer’s watercraft. Pumping water wouldn’t be good for business but pumping clean gas dockside was very good for business. Most of our customer’s boats were too large to trailer to a gas station on land where the gas was a lot less expensive.
Leaking underground gas tanks used to be more common than you would expect. I believe it was in the 1980's when the EPA came out with a comprehenive underground storage tank program which was designed to prevent bad stuff from getting into ground water. Part of the program included continuous monitering for leaks and was the reason for a great many small service stations closing because they couldn't afford to come into compliance. Back in the day many tanks were dug up and removed as part of an expensive remediation program.
When I was a kid back in the 70s, I remember a gas station being built in a small strip of land between the highway and a very steep riverbank. One day, the whole station collapsed down toward the river. It was suspected that leaking tanks caused erosion of the supporting soil until it all gave way.
Had gas stations at 3 corners of a major intersection. They all eventually shut down and were vacant lots for at least a decade. I presume because nobody wanted to pay for cleanup of the underground tanks. Such blight, and such irresponsibility from the former owners.
Yes, that's part of why there are so few independent filling stations now versus in the past. I remember a few years ago almost running out of gas because just about every shell station within several miles of me had closed their pumps for replacement. I finally found a different station that was open, otherwise I would have run out of gas. I'm not that brand loyal on gas, but I also had never been in a position where 4 gas stations were all without gas at the same time.
I used to work for a banking software company in the ATM division. A glitch in the software allowed free money. If you made a withdrawal then said yes to another transaction then canceled the transaction it would cancel the first payment. When this was found out the company kept this quiet until a new software patch. I had to look through hundreds of ATM transactions looking for anyone who may have used the glitch. One time in the early 2000's I went to a gas station and the pumps read 1 cent ( technically 1.9 cents). This station was unmanned so I canceled the transaction and tried again and it read 1 cent. Due to no other gas stations opened I did fill my car.
I'm going to be honest, from an IT perspective that feels like the station did not check if demo mode was still able to be switched on. In my opinion, the station should be going after the software company, since it was a product defect
She still needs to be prosecuted. Rewards cards can’t be passed around. Let’s say she used 600 gallons of gas.(which is twice the amount of the average person) She sold 6,800 gallons of gas.
@@cplmpcocptcl6306 while I understand what you're saying, I am coming from a perspective of proximate cause. The things I see that caused this issue, in order of proximity, are as follows. 1. Improper system set-ups. It seems like the owners of this station failed to set up the software in a manner that would not be overridable. 2. Bad inventory control. The fact that they didn't catch on after 100 uses seems negligent in inventory (gas) control 3. Bad software security. If I can swipe a rewards card twice by accident and somehow get free gas, that is not secure at all. If I were the owners, I would've gone after the software provider for not providing at least some 2 factor authentication for the software. Even a simple employee pin code that resets every day would be better than nothing.
@@cplmpcocptcl6306 Arguable, imo. Her getting free gas, her selling gas, the gas station losing money, are all separate things. I think the IT guy is right, the software company should be responsible for the loss, because the error happened due to the software, not the customer interacting with the system in the way it let the customer interact. I believe you don't get arrested for "intent," you get arrested for committing a crime. It depends on what they define as a crime here. I think prosecution is going to have a tough time going after her.
I’m also in tech and I agree it’s the fault of the vendor. Too much reasonable doubt about whether the woman was ID10T or PEBCAK. Guy gave her a reward card and she used it to get rewards. 50% of all users are of below median intelligence.
I had a rewards card for a gas station in Cincinnati that was supposed to autodraft my credit card once a month and give a discount for how much I purchased overall - I got a bill after three years saying I owed 4k - something similar happened with the cable company giving me an employee discount that wasn’t even notated on my bill because one of their employees previously lived at that address At what point do civil matters turn criminal?
🧐 What about that woman a couple of years ago that had gotten $1.2 million put into her bank account by mistake in GRETNA, La and ended up getting arrested?? 🤔
A gas station that I owned with a partner kept coming up short when we "sticked" the tank. WE had the state inspector check the pump and lo and behold, it was dispensing more than the dials indicated. The metering mechanism was replaced and the losses stopped.
My concern is why has a "demo mode" added to the software? I think that software developper should be investigated. It smells like back door tech fraud.
Місяць тому
They have to be able to test it during software development and during site installation and maintenance.
Yep. If it was just taking free gas I'd have little issue with it. But selling the fuel you got for free and making profit makes it an extra layer of shady, IMO
@@maddhatter3564 that's fair. I won't say she was in the right to take any, but it sure makes it worse when you're knowingly selling stolen goods once you've already stolen them. That's all I was saying
When I was a kid, (16) I worked for a gas station as a summer job. The gas was like 50 cents a gallon back then and the pumps had really long hoses suspended by a recoil cord above the pump and you could reach either side of a car on either side of the pump. The Owner actually showed me that after you pumped gas you could take the hose down and drain it's contents into a can, and it held maybe 1/3 of a gallon! Of course the next guy was actually paying for it as the hose had air in it, but we never put that together back then--we were just happy to have "free" gas!
If you can use points on the card to pay for fuel and she was given the card then perhaps ... "I thought I was using the rewards points to pay for the gas and had no idea how many points were on it" ... might cut it LOL. With the ATM story (In the the UK at least) often when customers complain the machine didn't give the requested money the banks say the machines are infallible and don't make mistakes. If the machine began to spit out free money they might struggle to hold that position if they try to recover the money. Perhaps that was the case in the story Steve mentions.
Yup happened to me petro canada put 1 million points on my card by mistake I spent them then they tried to have me arrested the cops told them write it off I thought I had been awarded for some contest they where offering but it went to my card by mistake they tried having me arrested for fraud when I was using my own card so how could it be fraud
so she believed that someone who owed her 100 dollars gave her a gift card worth 50,000 dollars? really? thats quite a stretch. if shed just kept her mouth shut she could have scammed them forever. stupid is as stupid does.@@xpusostomos
I remember that pole to mesure the level in the tank. We also had a product were used on the pole to see how much water was in the tank as well. You just brought back a lot of memories there!
Steve, I remember "sticking the tank" I worked in two gas stations, one was an independent I worked at when I was a student, and a Sunoco as a parttime job later on (remember the Sunoco "custom blending pump, Sunoco 260 was the ship, everybody that had a 'race car' needed Sunoco 260") this was back in the 70's when unleaded was just coming on, and leaded was still the norm.
Plus, it isn't out of the ordinary to swipe your card twice. I do it all the time - especially when I am trying to use my Costco member card at the Kroger gas station!
She's facing jail time, but if the pump was overcharging the public for 100x as much, they'd at best send everyone impacted a check for 10 bucks and pay a fine for a quarter of what they profited. Were I on the jury, i'd not find guilty.
If this had been her card I could see it but it was someone else’s card and she was selling the gas too. It was really more like a criminal enterprise than an individual taking advantage of a loophole.
But that would be different, if there was a pump error the company didn’t know about. I don’t think you could argue that this woman didn’t know she was getting free gas. Maybe you could argue she thought it was authorized because someone gave her the card, and maybe that person had won free gas or something.
Rewards cards can’t be passed around. Let’s say it was her card and she used 600 gallons of gas. (Which is twice the amount of the average person) She still sold 6,800 gallons. Straight up theft.
I used to deliver gasoline to stations and most now have meters in the tanks that work similar to your car's gas gauge. We would press a button on a panel (usually in the office or backroom of the station) to get a printout of how much fuel was in each of the tanks in both inches and gallons. We would then "stick" the tank to confirm the printout both before and after delivery. We always had two measuring sticks on the trailer, one for gas and the other for diesel.
Its funny Steve mentioned "sticking the tanks". I worked at a Shell gas station from 1979 to 1981 and had to stick the tanks at the end of my shift each night when I closed. I also had to read the total gallons of each pump which looks like an odometer on the face of each pump. I think even the newer digital pumps have that same total gallons odometer. After determining the total gallons of gas sold and the figure from sticking the tank, it wouldn't take very long to notice 1,000 gallons of gas missing when you start figuring out total sales each night. I had a lengthy sheet I had to fill out of total cash sales, total credit card sales, and my tank reads. If something didn't add up correctly, I had some explaining to do. And this was all done on pen and paper. In this age of digital sales and record keeping, I don't understand how in the hell it took so long to notice 7,000 gallons of gas missing. That is more than two full tanker deliveries. And I will tell you something else, that gas station won't eat the loss. They will pass it on to those buying their gas at that station now through higher prices. Ask those customers if they think its funny
One time, I got a Rottweiler-size lion toy for $20 because a grocery store employee made a mistake and didn’t print $80. The assistant manager was so angry swiping his authorization with a sneer like “somebody is in big trouble 😡😤😖”
I got a $2500 PC setup for $1000 once because of a price tag error. Didn't even know until the GM had to come and override everything. They took the time to make sure I didn't swap the tags. I it was worth it to both of us to take 45 minutes to ring me up.
I once got a $50 bucket of 800 ethnanol wipes for $5 because the cash register was wrong. I pointed it out and the cashier said "Well that's what the register says." If it weren't the last bucket I would have gon back and bough all of them.
A grocery store selling lion toys. I might guess that product is outside of the core business of the store. In my state of residence the price at the register is the price. This solution was a result of lobbing by retailers who wanted relief from discrepancies between advertised price, published to get customers in the door, and register price which often failed to include the published discount. It is not worth noting that the errors almost always were in favor of the store.
That's interesting because in the UK in a shop/store a misprinted tag in-store does NOT have to be honoured. In the UK you are essentially invited to make an offer in a concept known as "Invitation to Treat" (based on the sticker price for an item) ... but the actual contract of buying/selling happens at the moment of exchanging money for the item (the till / checkout). The exchange of money for goods is effectively agreeing the contract - no physical contract or verbal agreement need exist - the exchange is enough. If it were seen that obviously an item was mispriced the shop has a right to withdraw their invitation for you to buy it.
My checking account once had $20,000 more in it than it should have. I called BoA and after a few hours it wasn't there anymore. I never had to appear before a judge.
It might be hard to prosecute the dead guy, but I’d bet everything they’re damn sure gonna try…. 🤣😂🤣….. God, the justice system in this country is broken beyond repair….. 🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️
510 and ten times. OH my. I fill my truck up about 30 times a year. How long was this going on? What about her friends, are they going to be charged as well?
When banks fail the government uses taxpayer dollars to clean up the mess. The bankers get their bonuses and move on. Nassim Taleb calls this the "Robert Rubin fraud".
@@iuse9646God does, if you believe that sort of thing. Somehow how my parents programmed me with this thing called integrity. Hate it but love it more at the same time😎
Well I'm no thief but the other day I was buying a bunch of expensive fencing I looked at the register girl and asked her did you scan those 8 posts she looked at me like I was an asshole for questioning her doing her job and went on ringing stuff up I got 300 dollars worth of fence posts for free not my fault the girl sucked at doing her job and I did my part by bringing it to her attention 🤷♂️ at that point it was on her if she wants to give stuff away for free instead of check her screen to see if she scanned them
I believe this story was in Detroit some years ago, where guys had a hole cut in the floor of their vehicle would stop over the in ground tank filler, drop a hose in and pump out gas!
Like a lot of thefts like this, she got caught because she got greedy. Had she took only what she needed, this may have gone on for a long time unnoticed.
Most of us have been ripped off by vending machines multiple times over the years. Taken our money but not given the product. The owner of the vending machine will deny it happened. Can we have the owner of the vending machine charged with theft? The person/company that wrote the software should be ponying up for the poor security in their "Demo" mode feature.
Dont know if I would call it a business, sounds more like a racket she is getting paid from other people while they get free gas too, that is theft.@@cplmpcocptcl6306
I remember a story from years ago that a station had put the wrong price in the pumps, slipped a decimal place, so it was 100 times cheaper. Word too, got around, and they had a long line of people sucking out as much as they could. But, they were paying the offered price. I remember talks of charges of theft then too, but how can that even be considered if the people did nothing wrong from a regular gas station interaction? I never found out the aftermath.
The problem here the people knew or should have known this was a mistake and they are stealing. We had a gas station that did that in Abilene TX many many years ago. That stations lost tons of profit until they figure out the pump was missed price.
Why did it take so long (visits and gallons of gas) before they figured it out? Shouldn't the card company bare some responsibility along with the station for this to happen? If I sat on the jury, I'd have a problem convicting the woman.
The card company is (kinda) the gas station, it's a company reward card used to earn credit towards free gas when you make purchases with some other card (or cash), you could argue the pump vendors have responsibility but it is completely unrelated to the card company since this was something that was programmed into the pump itself, the type of card it was expecting to be put in demonstration mode could have been set to any form of card it just seems for some reason they chose rewards cards when they updated them
Steve, don't forget to put the goop on the end of the measuring stick before sticking it in the tank that tells you if there's water in the gas station's tank!
No, no, no, no! I disagree Mr. Lehto: If I prepay for $20 worth of gas and the thing gives me $30 by accident, first of all I probably wouldn't notice. Secondly if I did notice after it was in my tank, they'd have to pump it out because I might not have the $10 on me or in my budget, and they can pay me for the time I have to wait due to their malfunction.
This is pretty unfair, it wasn't a minor difference, it was a major amount like having $20 worth of gas and getting $100 worth of gas using it. Something which you should at least question and inquire about or else it becomes gross negligence.
Love the T-shirt. I lived in Hurst, Texas growing up and I listened to Q102 and KZEW. The strange looking elephant would stomp on the ground and bubble gum would be stuck to it's foot. They didn't play bubble gum rock, just Classic and Album rock.
Sounds like when the airline websites have a boo-boo for flights and folks buy 'em and then the airline cancels the tickets because of the fat-finger boo-boo.
Why was it called a rewards card if there was no rewards??? Why was the software company not held liable??? They were obviously incompetent! The SCOTUS has said that corporations are people too! but, you will not ever see one in jail.
If they had robbed you of a discount for ten million customers there would be no criminal prosecution. They call it a civil matter. Reverse it and the state is aggressive in prosecution.
@cjrock4096 neither did she -- but their negligence is what led to the problem -- the gas station company should sue the software company and win no contest
How is it someone takes gas against the will of the owner that is a crime, but if someone takes free housing against the will of the owner, and that is a civil matter?
Free housing doesn't involve taking anything. There would be some scenarios where pumping free gas is a civil matter... Like if you had a credit account, and didn't pay
How is taking and damaging a house, which has significant value arguably enough to be priced well above the threshold of felony theft, any different then taking any other item of value. Not apples and apples but I had an issue of a person dumping garbage in my yard repeatedly. Even had video of them pulling up, taking the trash out of their car and ripping the bag open and dumping it in my yard. Nope that’s a civil matter. So I said to the officer, so I can come and dump trash in your yard, or in the yard at the city building and it’s simply a civil matter? Isn’t this considered illegal dumping per city ordinance and a misdemeanor? Then I get the whole back peddling ect ect, because they never like it when it’s them that’s the one that’s the subject of the “crime”. The funny thing is I didn’t even know who the guy was that was doing it. But supposedly he thought that my house was the house of the person his wife had had an affair and left him for. I mean I get him being angry but still isn’t right. I still see that guy every once in a while and he still doesn’t make eye contact with me. My point is the law is enforced kinda funky in this country. And I assure you if I leave for vacation and come home to people living in my house I’m not sure what I’ll do but I’m not taking it’s a civil matter as an answer.
I once was falsely convicted and imprisoned for 1000 days, where the police state held me captive and didn't pay me a dime for the work I did. When I won my appeal and walked out the back door a month later (after winning my appeal, they don't rush or want to let you go)... they still didn't pay me one red cent, nor say they were sorry. So take that criminal charge to the bank and cash it for me. Let's not even start with the 85 years the United States government enforced slavery before the Civil War. Or the massive amount of land theft from the native americans. Considering how much of the price of gasoline is actually taxes, I see no problem with this. If that's how they set up the Rewards Card program to work, that's on them, not her for using it to get her gas. Demo mode is demo mode. Looks like they sucessefully demo'd how your experience really should be at the pump... free gas.
As far as I know, New Jersey is now the only state that prohibits people from pumping their own gas. So you still have to deal with a person handling the cared or cash.
I am from Lincoln Nebraska. Interesting aspect is there is only one pump and pantry here in town. So when it was mentioned I knew exactly where this happened. Which would have made it difficult to hide.
So if a politician uses a 'loophole' to expense out millions of dollars of friends and family favors, it's just fine. But a middle aged lady uses a loophole to get a critical consumer good, and everyone loses their minds!
Ride your government to close the loopholes to benefit themselves unethically. They won’t do it. But, those who will excuse thieves because “well the other guys do it” is unethical themselves and endorse thieves.
I read a story a few years ago about a man that went into his bank and picked up a stack of deposit slips,took them home and put his account number on the account number line and carried them back and put them on the stack. He wound up with over a million dollars in his account. He didn’t get to spend it because he was in jail.
LoL! As I heard it, he had deposit slips professionally printed with his account number. He went branch to branch, seeding the sneaky deposit slips into the deposit slips in the waiting rooms. He was caught because a bank detective went branch to branch depositing seven cents in each branch, until one of the ridiculous deposits didn't show up. The bank then looked for any other account gaining seven cents, and there was only one. The scams have gotten sneakier.
In the early 80’s I forgot to pay for gas at a station we visited every Sunday ( the kids and I were talking about a place we were visiting that day and I totally forgot to go in and pay) and the owner didn’t send cops after us - (no credit card readers then) somehow the following Sunday it occurred to me I might not have paid for the gas - I know sounds weird- but it’s true. I filled up and went into station and asked if I forgot to pay the week before and manager said yes I asked how much and I paid it. I asked why he didn’t report it - he said- you come here all the time- I figured you forgot - so I waited knowing you’d probably be back today. Those were the days!
Same happened to me.
It still happens with small businesses. A local brew supply shop will often just let me take my order and pay later since they know I'm good for it. I've had to remind them of past purchases, since they got super busy while moving locations. I was like, guys, please, let me give you money. 🤣🤣
they were the days because of people like you
Around that same time, in Germany, I was president of a club. We had weekly meetings at a particular italian restaurant. I would get so wrapped up in club business that I repeatedly forgot to pay my bill. Almost every week! It almost became a running joke between the owner and myself and the entire club knew about it. It was actually kinda hilarious. For all of us, including the owner!
You know that has happened to me like a few months ago. I paid for something in a drive thru and I guess the payment didn't go through and they didn't notice and neither did I until I saw that that card was declined later that day. I know I could have just left it at that but since I go there all the time I figured I might as well make it right so I did the next day.
I wonder how long she could have kept getting free gas if she had just kept it to herself and only filled her tank when she needed it.
Almost every time someone is caught like this is because they cant keep it to themselves.
She would have rolled on til the next software update at least, or until someone else got greedy and got it busted. How many others probably got free fuel like this? Lol
She would have got cut off as these things dont stay around forever. Find a legal loophole and hit it as gard as you can. I gave my friendss, family, neighbors, distant cousins $.01 a gallon gas for 18 months by exploiting brookshires gas. The program would have been updated anyways. Better to take $20k from them than $2k.
@@Don-mi6zl What's baffling to me is that you don't seem to see that as unethical.
@@Vykk_Draygo do you think it is unethical for corporations to hire armies of people to try and wring every last cent they can put of you? If not your moral compass is broken when your betters find a way of doing the same to them.
How come if the corporation made a mistake, it would be a civil matter, but if a person does it it is a criminal matter.
Yes, strange because most corporations are criminal and most people are civil.
She didn't make a mistake. She knew exactly what she was doing
So do most corporations.
@J-gr4znThere is no “right” there’s just what’s legal and what’s not legal
Because she was selling it to others besides using it for herself!😲😲
"If he wasn't so f*cking greedy, he'd have been tough to spot; but in the end, they're all greedy." -Ace Rothstein, _Casino_
😠 "You can have the money and the hammer or... "
"His" name is Dawn. And the "he" is a "she".
Did u ask it how it identifies? @@coloradomountainman8659
I suspect if she hadn't got greedy and "sold" the use of the card, and had just carried on filling her own car when she had to, this wouldn't have come to light.
I also suspect that if she had kept it only to herself, she might not have been in jail too.
Yeah but what's the fun in that?
Plus that violates the terms of service
@ralphferley2602sorry.. court has not decided this....
Not really sooner or later they would have done another update when they see all that gas missing and probably fixed it.
I had this happen to me. I went to Dollar General in my local town, got a gas card for 5$. Swiped the card put the nozzle in my tank and locked it. Got in my car to wait because it was cold. After a little bit of time browsing my phone I thought to myself “man that’s taking a long time”. Thinking there must be air bubbles in the line making it slow. After I heard it click I went to put the nozzle up and saw on the screen it said like 65$ worth of gas and my tank was full. Checked my bank account and it said 5$ was withdrawn. Went inside to explain what happen and the employee could not care less. Dude was like “that’s weird, I guess you got a full tank man”. Never happened again.
well you tried. morally at least , you are clear. TIP tho, maybe if it happens again record the conversation with th employee.
Exactly. You felt compelled to be honest and were rewarded by a guilt-free full tank for $5. It's the little things that make life great! I do wonder what repercussions fell upon the employee. If any. And if he cared.
Perhaps write a letter to the district attorney in the area? Maybe they could trace the card back so that you can pay your fair share?
My personal rule is that if I genuinely try to correct an error in my favor, and the person I report it to declines to correct the error, then it's mine and I don't feel guilty. If I were you I'd have gotten a few more of those $5 gas cards and used them on the same pump.
@@derrickpiche1119They wouldn't bother. It would cost more in manpower salary time than the $65.
Morale of the story folks. Never say anything to anyone when you catch an angle on something.
One can keep a secret, two can not.
This! People can't help but talk.
Bingo. This is why I never understood these get rich quick schemes people fall for. If you have a secret that made you boat loads of money, why tf would you tell anyone about it?
Analogy ~Just because someone found a way to get gas without paying on the spot, doesn’t mean it’s legal. If you find a door to a business open in the middle of the night, doesn’t mean, free shopping spree.
It does if there's a sign that says free shopping night 🤷
@@iuse9646 There is no sign equivalent here. The card instructions would all say you can use it once.
If using a loop hole is a crime, then all the politicians should go to jail
The problem is: That's their loophole. They don't go to jail when the rest of us should.
Good point.
Not only that but business overcharge costumers including utilities and you don’t have the prosecution going after them. If you don’t like it you have to sue , using your own pocket and risk and even if you win you have to pay your own lawyer. This should be a civil matter. My problem with the woman is that she make money reselling the gas, if she hates not done that I will let her go.
So what you're saying is that she would make a great Democrat politician.
They should probably go to jail loophole or no loophole.
Many many years ago, I had a CD with a local Savings and Loan. I decided to move the money elsewhere so went in and closed that CD and walked out with the $4500 that was in the account. Imagine my surprise when i decided to move banks about 3 years later, when the teller asked me if I also wanted to take my CD as well? I wasn't shady at all, I told her that I had closed that account almost 3 years ago. So long story short managers and accountants and all sorts of people got involved. 3 weeks later I got a call from the Branch Manager: "that money is all yours, we have no record that the CD was every closed". I went and got that $4500, as well as a letter from the branch Manager stating that very thing. Unsurprisingly, that Savings and Loan is no longer in business.
That was very nice of them. That reminds me, my CD is up and I have to tell them to close it and transfer it to my savings. 😊
You definitely did the right thing and it paid off, and you get to live with every conscience.
Yeah, I've have dozens of bank errors in just the last 10 years... never in MY FAVOR. Do the banks ever get prosecuted [excluding case when the settle for 6 hours of profit?]. I never see a bank CEO in cuffs. "Corporations are people" until they break the law.
Still, nice $4500 bank error in your favor.
When I was a teller, my credit union kept meticulous records and I can't imagine that, but they also eliminated time cards and even hourly employees were trusted to do this. As Bob, our CEO (RIP), said "I trust you with a drawer of $80k (I remember BEGGING my manager to move cash to the vault because my drawer was almost $200k- this was 2009, so almost $300k today), I think we can trust you to fill out a timesheet", he was right that we didn't rip off the credit union, but also a little wrong, HR & Bob sent out the occasional email reminding us to account for ALL hours worked (wage theft is so rampant we did it to ourselves), if you started 10 minutes late to finish something, you were expected to document it (pay yourself- no reason needed) and managers were told to be me vigilant.
Before his death (he saved 4 people when their group went kayaking, although we were never told, PA records that kind on incident in a database- knowing was a great comfort), my dad worked in the largest credit union in PA, they treated him very well. I had 2 brainstem surgeries during COVID, lost my ability to walk, basically liked with him for 4 months and he helped me while working from home and pretending not to keep an eye on me. His boss worked around me even after he was forced to go back to work (he was only one of 2-3 people authorized to size mortgage checks- they weren't doing that from home- and one of them retired)
TLDR: Corporations are an amoral (lack of morals, not immoral) crapshoot.
The moral of this story is not to put your money in a CD when rates are low because even after 3 years you still had the same $4500 lmao
Actually this happened to a couple in Long Island NY. They sent their mortgage check to a bank that kept sending it back. The bank was bought by a bigger bank. They finally went in after the check was returned the third time and they received a letter from the bank stating they did not have a mortgage with them and they got a free house.
I guess she could ask them to show her in the terms and conditions where it prohibits the use of the card in that manner.
I mean they probably said it wasn't transferable, and since it wasn't issued to her then she's not going to be able to rely on any other terms and conditions.
It also most likely has the stipulation that the card can’t be used in any manner not described under these terms and conditions.
When I got caught shoplifting this is what I did. “Show me the terms of conditions in the contract I signed where it says I cannot just take stuff” I said. They let me go and dropped all charges.
@@DiamondCake2 Shoplifting is by definition a criminal offence, there is no relevance to contract law whatsoever. If this story is true, which seems highly unlikely, then they couldn't be arsed to press charges, your completely spurious argument is obviously not what got you off or more intelligent criminals than you would have worked this out and just be helping themselves to everything.
The moral and societal contract has long been frayed and is now most openly dissolved between the US citizenry. Would I have had the same thought of "heck yeah, pump them dry" in the past when I could afford to live on $80K salary? Absolutely not. But now, I cannot even rent a 2 Bed 2 Bath 1200 sq ft. home with my fiance unless she works and makes $60K.
Any glitch like this exploited by a corporation, business, or politician would be counted in their favor, but nary the peasants to find such a boon!!!
I wonder if they KNEW the gas was "disappearing" but did not investigate closely because they were worried it was leaking out. Which, if they KNEW was happening, means a VERY expensive EPA visit, remediation, downtime, etc.
Very few gas stations own and maintain the tanks under their location, so it wouldnt have been at their expense (they probably even have insurance to cover any closures because of leaking tanks)
The "demo" mode is for pump maintenance (fixing leaking hoses or faulty nozzle shut off, etc.) and for calibration by regulators insuring that one gallon is dispensed as one gallon is charged to the customer. All pumps have the certification stickers. All "demo" transactions are metered, and the fuel dispensed is poured back into the holding tanks. They know when maintenance was done and when regulators visited and generally neither of those run "fill-ups". They knew that "demo" was the missing 7,000 gallons but just needed to find the one initiating that process.
I used to do that enforcement for the EPA. Our definitions of "VERY" might be different and it could depend on the circumstances but the EPA fine wouldn't be too large. If there was a real leak, the fix could be expensive and the cost of the lost product would probably be greater than the fine.
@@OmarRodriguez-vl2tq I never claimed they were paying attention.
I wonder if they were space aliens. Lol
In the early 90s, a gas pump malfunctioned while I was pumping. I prepaid for $10, stuck the nozzle in, started pumping, and went around cleaning my windows. I didn't hear the pump click off, and when I checked, it had stopped counting at $10, but it was still pumping, and it stopped measuring how many gallons I pumped. I got a full tank for $10! I did go in and tell them the pump was malfunctioning, and I had no idea how much gas I pumped. They said don't worry about it, thanks for telling us.
Something like that was a "clear" malfunction, and at that moment they probably couldn't get to the inside readers that meter the actual flow, or stick the tanks, so yea they gave you the extra for free. Having been a manager at a gas station every morning we had to stick the tanks, (that checked for water and the height of the gas in the tank which you could translate into gallons with a chart in the office. Then once a week we would open the front cover of the gas pumps and there was another meter that showed how many gallons have actually flowed though that particular pump nozzle. So at least once a week, at the gas station our books had to all come out the same.
Occasionally we would find a faulty pump and have to put it out of service.
Another crazy but understandable thing we did was when raising the price of gas, we would change the outside signs first then change at the pump. When lowering the price we would change the pump first then the outside sign. That had something to do with false advertising, when they went to the pump it would be the lower price at the pump.
What did you tell them for, ????? let them find out on their own !!!!!
@@atomic66 Do realize that if your philosophy is to not help businesses fix problems they have dispensing their services, then you have no grounds for complaining when businesses do not help you fix problems you encounter receiving their services. At the end of the day, the gas station owner is just a regular guy like you and me trying to make a living. If the owner has screwed you over in the past, then I can understand wanting to screw him. But if he's done nothing but provided you with a convenient place to fill up on gas, then you should help him as much as he's helped you in the past.
Same thing happened to me in about 2018 or 19
Friend and I once had similar happen except it kept counting. He prepaid $20, cut it off around $40, they wanted him to pay the rest but neither of us had any money. Had to convince them to not call cops and let him go in later in week to pay. He did pay, but as "payback" he did put in a call to Nevada's Weights and Measures Division who is responsible for overseeing gas pumps here. :)
When machines screw up in favor of the company, nobody goes to jail and the customer has to fight like hell to try to get his money back; BUT when the machines screw up in favor of the customer, all of a sudden, it's a crime. Something wrong here.
🎯
EXACTLY MY FEELING TOO!!!!
Yep. Banks take money from customers all the time and nothing happens. In fact, when they DO face a fine, it is straight up less than what they gained from their illegal actions.
Meanwhile if an individual does the same actions, they spend decades in prison.
Machines screwing up in favor of the customer can and is punished...
Wrong. If a cash register machine screws up and opens in front of me I still don’t have the right to take all the cash inside that isn’t mine. That’s the moronic level of reasoning you’re putting forth.
the business should also be suing the company that wrote the software that had such a bug in it.
“bug”… I feel like this was programmed in deliberately so the programmers could also fleece the gas station.
"The man died, which is convenient for him, because it's very hard to prosecute him now."
I'm dying
Well, at least you won't be prosecutable either 😂
Well that depends on the DA. As we well know it's quite political in some jurisdictions.
Over at the defence table is an attorney holding a urn....
😂😂😂😂
@@corssecurity"My client will take the 5th"
Some really "sharp" DA might try. Numbers are important! If you let one guy go you have to let them all go!
I'm willing to bet "demo mode" is actually a debugging mode that was forgotten to be taken out by the software designers before pushing out the update
My question is was it only this card or all reward cards. Some secret code put in the programmers to get themselves free gas and one of the cards slipped out.
Sounds like that software company is at fault (especially if they want the money)
@@BobWiersemaI once knew a programmer who did that. It wasn't gas, but something else that required a card and was automated. It was only his card number, the use of it didn't go into the logs, and he didn't share or abuse it. He'd been getting freebies for at least 5 years when I knew him. In the scheme of things, his use probably amounted to less than rounding, but it makes me wonder how many other coders have done something like that.
Demo mode is probably a legit feature of the pumps. Here in Wisconsin we have a state government body that goes around to all the gas stations and checks that when the pumps register a gallon has been pumped that an exact gallon comes out (they put inspection stickers on every pump I've seen in the state annually). That demo mode is probably for this exact purpose (I haven't witnessed these checks but I wouldn't be surprised if the pumped gas gets dumped back into the station's under ground storage tanks).
@@tomcarlson3913 That's done everywhere. Something about weights and measures compliance. And I'm almost positive that the testing agent doesn't just bypass they billing system and start pumping.
I will never understand how you can be blamed for machine malfunctions, computer glitches and people’s stupidity!
Can you understand that it is wrong to intentionally take advantage of your neighbors mistake in order to enrich yourself at their expense?
@@sonictech1000Exactly 👍
Said every hacker that has stolen your private information. It's not like they committed a crime they just exploited a loophole.. right? Caused thousands to get fired and with the PII stolen managed to steal tens of thousands if not more. But hey... it was a bug in the software that was exploited. How can a hacker be blamed for exploiting a glitch right?
If she wasnt aware of the error it wouldnt have been a crime. At best station could have tried to take her to court to recover the gas. But she bought the card from someone else knowing of the bug that clearly wans tintented and kept stealing the gad and even sold it to other people she knew exactly what was happening and that she was stealing it so now she might be going to jail
You don't understand how you can be blamed for taking thousands of gallons of gas over hundreds of fill ups and also selling the use of the card? Lmao
Another case of greedy crooks. She could have just used once a week or less and they may have never noticed a tank full missing occasionally. And I’ll bet she didn’t realize she had stole 7,000 gallons over that time period. But going as far as to sell the stolen gas. Wow! Deserved to get caught.
Most gas stations are independently owned (either a franchisee or an entirely independent gas station) and operate on razer thin margins. They notice if a Twinkie goes missing....you better believe they'd notice thousands of gallons of gas.
When my daughter was a little kid she called the ATM "the magic money machine". "You put a plastic card in, Mom. and you get money out. IT'S MAGIC!"
When I was 7 or 8 I overheard another kid in a store in the next isle asking his mom for something and she told him they couldn't afford it and he told her to just write a check. I guess I was a little more aware at that age because I thought to myself "That isn't how checks work".
Unfortunately , some of those children still believe this even after they grow up.
@@paulperry7091 That's why there should be basic finance included in the K-12 curriculum. It doesn't take much time and it's something that everybody will need and use as an adult.
Just file bankruptcy after maxing out your card.. and let the Magic work!
Send her to prison
3 can keep a secret if 2 are dead, right. Never should have told anyone about her OP trick.
wtf are u even talking about. she was tracked due to a detection of loss revenue on gas, and since it was her rewards card that activated it, it was easily detectable that THIS PERSONS REWARD CARD POURED THIS MUCH GAS FOR 0 DOLLARS. telling a single soul doesnt freaking matter in this case. not only that, she could have kept filling up large gas cans and just selling the gas cheaper and no1 else knows where she gets the gas from, it STILL bites her in the ass. do you know why she only got away with it for less than a year? because book keeping is done then rechecked quarterly, to get a proper amount for tax time. if you have a bunch of gas missing without being paid for, and u just check whos bought the most gas ull find her near the top of the list. 7000 gallons is alot...
If it had happened just once by accident then she would be innocent, but she was repeatedly committing fraud and theft, in addition to profiting by the sale of stolen goods. That is a crime, and she deserves to be punished for it.
45yr old lifelong Michigan resident here. Just found your channel today and I’m so hooked. Very likable dude for sure.
This woman has a bright future with a private equity firm.
🎯
She was just testing the pump in demo mode to show how an empty tank of gas is filled at the pump. Very thorough testing too.
She ought to send a bill to the company for her testing services.
😂😂😂😂
Most underrated comments.👍🏻
very scientific, needed a broad base of data. under different temps ,barametric pressures, humidities etc. lol
She thought it was a gift card! An unlimited gift card, like a free checking account, lol.
I don't know if they still stick the tanks to see how much fuel is in them. I knew a guy in the 70's who had a electric fuel pump in his trunk next to the filler tube (behind the license plate) with a long hose and he would drop it down into the gas stations tank late at night and flip the switch on his dashboard to fill up. I don't think he ever paid for gas while owning that car!
The thing that pisses me off is when I go into a store or gas station and buy something like gas and put it into my car and offer to pay for it at the register and the clerk says I can not buy it because their machine is broke. I say here is the cash money what did you do before there were computers. They give a dumb look and say sorry they can’t help me and refuse to complete the transaction. You can’t fix stupid.
She messed up by sharing with others. She could have had "free" gas for life.
Nope. Others figure out thes things. Find a loophole and hit it as hard as you can. I got $.01 a gallon gas from brooshires for 18 months. As did all my firends, family and neighbors. I orefer 20k in benefits to 2k.
Not likely. We are in the era of software where they likely run reports/analytics to look for this type of exploit whether from customer or employee. It was only a matter of time.
The love of money.
She killed the Goose that laid the Golden Egg.
@@ighdesigns is the root of all evil. 😘
When I was a younger man, the bank machine that was in the store that I worked at dispensed $5's and $20's. The Armored Car company that services that machine screwed up and put a container of $20's in the spot meant for $5's. So you would go and ask for $15 and get $60. The bank handled it the same as in Steve's story...Bank error in your favor.
The employee however....
Law is largely about intent, in that case the customers didnt do anything differently than they normally would have. This gal proved there was a certain way she had to do it to work.
Why isn’t the company that programmed it liable?
She bonded out with her rewards card. 😂
I get that this isn't right and it's theft. I just hate that when an error favors the "customer" it's a crime, but when it favors the business (the overwhelming majority of these issues) it's just a simple mistake.
It's because, like the system in Psycho-pass, our system has trouble assigning blame to a group or system. It can only blame individuals. When you have a corporation everyone just points the finger to the next person.
My wife signed up at a bank where they are supposed to give you a $900 bonus for opening a checking and savings and having minimums and having direct deposit. 2 months later, called the help desk... "Oh the code wasnt entered by our employee when you opened your account."
She went to the bank and they were able to resolve it, because apparently a "glitch" caused it to disappear.
I wonder how many people just never collected the $300-$900 bonus.
Honest people would have reported the issue, not keep taking advantage of it.
@@oldgrizzlygamer Who said anything about honesty? Did you read my first sentence?
@@oldgrizzlygamerNot always the best plan. Some years ago, my friend reported a glitch he found in a video game that gave players free stuff (that they usually had to pay for). He found it, then repeated the process to confirm how it worked, and then reported it. Game company response was to ban him from their platform for life. For months, he wondered if they were going to send the cops after him, but that never happened. Total value of that glitch was about $20, but he was sure it could be repeated endlessly.
Eehhhhh… If I see a label on an OLED 75in LED TV for $150, and rings up for that, that seems like it’s the store’s problem.
Right. Does that then count as theft on the part of the purchaser?
Right. That is the store's problem, IMO.
However, this isn't the same as mislabeled merchandise. She had to knowingly perform a special sequence of events to change the price of the fuel herself. That isn't a mistake, or a loophole - it's an exploit. It's theft and Steve explains why several times.
Yeah, that would be the store's problem. But this situation is equivalent to you getting to the self-checkout register with the TV, hacking the register so it gives you the TV for free, then leaving with it.
It should also be pointed out that legally, the store is allowed to rescind your $150 TV purchase once it discovers the pricing error. Genuine mistakes are not contractually binding. Most stores opt not to enforce that right because the bad publicity that would generate exceeds the loss of a few hundred or few thousand dollars for just letting you keep the TV.
@@Hakuna_FrittataI think it's a stretch to say that swiping a card twice is an exploit. At a certain point it is up to the gas station to secure their system. I don't think it should be legally the same thing as shoplifting because it is understood that although you can physically pick up the merchandise you are expected to go to the register to pay. However, the pump normally charges you for gas. If you don't have permission to take the gas, the pump doesn't dispense it. Yes, common sense says that something is wrong with this picture and morally she should have asked about it, but I don't think it should be criminal for her to make use of their mistake.
It is, but if that label is only there because you printed it out and stuck it on and demanded the store honor it in spite of a different price being listed in public, that's a you problem.
Dood....the Zoo! Oh man, best station we ever had. Denton High, 1982, the back window of my 6.6 had a"Q102 Album Rock" sticker with the Zoo Nation elephant wings sticker above it. HOW MANY cars had that back then?
A long time ago when bill change machines where everywhere, I found one that gave you 5 quarters when you put in a dollar.
If the card was given to her, it couldn't be linked to her by name or address.
Except for the vehicle plates
No, but the video of her using it all the time could link her.
Timestamp of when it was swiped at which pump, then match it with camera footage.
All the witnesses saying "Sally Smith let me use her card to fill up for $20". Forget about camera footage. They probably have that, too, then they can go back to Billy Bob Smith who gave her the card and prove the connection.
@@sblijheidwhat footage? most stations lack cameras
7,000 gallons in 6 months? She's a slacker. I could easily have done double that.
I'd have been rolling around to all the stations and getting multiple cards haha fill my car with gas, fill some cans with diesel on another card. 😂
My buddy's dad did pressure testing on petroleum vessels and pipelines in side refineries. There was always fuel ⛽️ in the test rig when done.
you could hold 500 gallons of fuel in the chamber.
He would come home and we'd transfer 500 gallons to 10) 55 gallon drums. 😂funny thing they would give him new drums for nothing. Just a few dollars he always had 2 to 3 thousand gallons of fuel in 55 gallon drums sitting on pallets. 😂 The police, fire department city services all came and bought fuel..lol. they'd send a truck to pick up 4 barrels at a time..
Dude. 40 gallons per DAY. That's three times 13 gallons. Takes a LOT of effort to find three folks that need gas, EVERY DAY.
@@dennissvitak5475 Did I say double? I meant triple! 🤪 I'm just being a loud mouth. She was pretty industrious.
Thay see me rolling. "Thay hatein." patrolling try to catch me riding dirty.
Steve I work in ann arbor and we still stick tanks, we have a digital level transmitter, but have to stick it monthly still
People actually believe it’s okay to steal because no one stopped them from stealing.
We used to call it “Dipping the tank” when I worked at a marina in the mid 1970’s. Long wooden measuring stick that we painted a purple water finder product on the end so that if it turned red we knew that we had somehow gotten a bad delivery of gas that had water in it. Thanks for the memory!
This reminded me of one of our regular motorcycle rides from Melbourne up to Broken Hill in NSW. On the leg between Mildura and Broken Hill there was a small service station about halfway where everyone used to fill up as some bikes didn't have the range to cover the 300Kms in one ride. It was very popular among local riders until one time when I overheard the owner talking to a worker there saying (after using the stick) "We're getting a bit low on super (around 95 octane). Pump a few hundred litres of water into the tank." (To bring up the level of fuel.)
After that episode, we made sure we carried enough fuel with us each time we made the trip and never stopped there again. I heard that they closed down a while later, I presume when the word got around and no-one stopped there any more.
@@olsmokey The reasons we dipped our tanks were for inventory control and to make sure we were NOT pumping water into the fuel systems in our customer’s watercraft. Pumping water wouldn’t be good for business but pumping clean gas dockside was very good for business. Most of our customer’s boats were too large to trailer to a gas station on land where the gas was a lot less expensive.
Leaking underground gas tanks used to be more common than you would expect. I believe it was in the 1980's when the EPA came out with a comprehenive underground storage tank program which was designed to prevent bad stuff from getting into ground water. Part of the program included continuous monitering for leaks and was the reason for a great many small service stations closing because they couldn't afford to come into compliance. Back in the day many tanks were dug up and removed as part of an expensive remediation program.
When I was a kid back in the 70s, I remember a gas station being built in a small strip of land between the highway and a very steep riverbank. One day, the whole station collapsed down toward the river. It was suspected that leaking tanks caused erosion of the supporting soil until it all gave way.
Had gas stations at 3 corners of a major intersection. They all eventually shut down and were vacant lots for at least a decade. I presume because nobody wanted to pay for cleanup of the underground tanks. Such blight, and such irresponsibility from the former owners.
Yes, that's part of why there are so few independent filling stations now versus in the past. I remember a few years ago almost running out of gas because just about every shell station within several miles of me had closed their pumps for replacement. I finally found a different station that was open, otherwise I would have run out of gas. I'm not that brand loyal on gas, but I also had never been in a position where 4 gas stations were all without gas at the same time.
The moral of the story is don't talk to the police.
I used to work for a banking software company in the ATM division. A glitch in the software allowed free money. If you made a withdrawal then said yes to another transaction then canceled the transaction it would cancel the first payment. When this was found out the company kept this quiet until a new software patch. I had to look through hundreds of ATM transactions looking for anyone who may have used the glitch.
One time in the early 2000's I went to a gas station and the pumps read 1 cent ( technically 1.9 cents). This station was unmanned so I canceled the transaction and tried again and it read 1 cent. Due to no other gas stations opened I did fill my car.
I'm going to be honest, from an IT perspective that feels like the station did not check if demo mode was still able to be switched on. In my opinion, the station should be going after the software company, since it was a product defect
She still needs to be prosecuted.
Rewards cards can’t be passed around. Let’s say she used 600 gallons of gas.(which is twice the amount of the average person) She sold 6,800 gallons of gas.
@@cplmpcocptcl6306 while I understand what you're saying, I am coming from a perspective of proximate cause. The things I see that caused this issue, in order of proximity, are as follows.
1. Improper system set-ups. It seems like the owners of this station failed to set up the software in a manner that would not be overridable.
2. Bad inventory control. The fact that they didn't catch on after 100 uses seems negligent in inventory (gas) control
3. Bad software security. If I can swipe a rewards card twice by accident and somehow get free gas, that is not secure at all. If I were the owners, I would've gone after the software provider for not providing at least some 2 factor authentication for the software. Even a simple employee pin code that resets every day would be better than nothing.
@@cplmpcocptcl6306 Arguable, imo. Her getting free gas, her selling gas, the gas station losing money, are all separate things. I think the IT guy is right, the software company should be responsible for the loss, because the error happened due to the software, not the customer interacting with the system in the way it let the customer interact.
I believe you don't get arrested for "intent," you get arrested for committing a crime. It depends on what they define as a crime here. I think prosecution is going to have a tough time going after her.
I’m also in tech and I agree it’s the fault of the vendor. Too much reasonable doubt about whether the woman was ID10T or PEBCAK. Guy gave her a reward card and she used it to get rewards. 50% of all users are of below median intelligence.
or perhaps a customer failure to follow instructions?
I had a rewards card for a gas station in Cincinnati that was supposed to autodraft my credit card once a month and give a discount for how much I purchased overall - I got a bill after three years saying I owed 4k - something similar happened with the cable company giving me an employee discount that wasn’t even notated on my bill because one of their employees previously lived at that address
At what point do civil matters turn criminal?
🧐 What about that woman a couple of years ago that had gotten $1.2 million put into her bank account by mistake in GRETNA, La and ended up getting arrested?? 🤔
A gas station that I owned with a partner kept coming up short when we "sticked" the tank. WE had the state inspector check the pump and lo and behold, it was dispensing more than the dials indicated. The metering mechanism was replaced and the losses stopped.
where I live I'm pretty sure the pumps all have to be checked and certified with a sealing sticker every 6 months.
if "they" overcharge you - your SCREWED !! ... i love how this system works !!
My concern is why has a "demo mode" added to the software? I think that software developper should be investigated. It smells like back door tech fraud.
They have to be able to test it during software development and during site installation and maintenance.
COOL!
I grew up listening to KZEW. Coincidentally I just a few weeks ago had one of their stickers sent to me here in Tennessee.
She got way too greedy.
Yep. If it was just taking free gas I'd have little issue with it. But selling the fuel you got for free and making profit makes it an extra layer of shady, IMO
@@goosenotmaverick1156 I have issue with both but have far less sympathy since she sold the stolen gas.
@@maddhatter3564 that's fair. I won't say she was in the right to take any, but it sure makes it worse when you're knowingly selling stolen goods once you've already stolen them. That's all I was saying
When I was a kid, (16) I worked for a gas station as a summer job. The gas was like 50 cents a gallon back then and the pumps had really long hoses suspended by a recoil cord above the pump and you could reach either side of a car on either side of the pump.
The Owner actually showed me that after you pumped gas you could take the hose down and drain it's contents into a can, and it held maybe 1/3 of a gallon! Of course the next guy was actually paying for it as the hose had air in it, but we never put that together back then--we were just happy to have "free" gas!
I did the same thing
if you circled to another pump it would've been free lol
Also way back in the phone booth era there was a code and procedure to make free calls...wooo hooo! This was in California but I was from NY
The imcompetence shown by the estsbkushment is a sugnifucant factir here. Have they no responsubility fir their failures ?
If you can use points on the card to pay for fuel and she was given the card then perhaps ... "I thought I was using the rewards points to pay for the gas and had no idea how many points were on it" ... might cut it LOL. With the ATM story (In the the UK at least) often when customers complain the machine didn't give the requested money the banks say the machines are infallible and don't make mistakes. If the machine began to spit out free money they might struggle to hold that position if they try to recover the money. Perhaps that was the case in the story Steve mentions.
Yup happened to me petro canada put 1 million points on my card by mistake
I spent them then they tried to have me arrested the cops told them write it off I thought I had been awarded for some contest they where offering but it went to my card by mistake they tried having me arrested for fraud when I was using my own card so how could it be fraud
well of course she KNEW it was FREE GAS because she was TOLD the card was for FREE GAS
she also know the guy was lying to her.
@@scottmcshannon6821did she? She took the card as payment for debt? She’ll never be convicted by a jury.
@@maxnoe3079 : Such a thing would _normally_ involve "free ____ for life." Didn't she know the man had died?
Prepaid gift cards are a thing. Maybe she thought it had $50,000 prepaid like an iTunes card. It's not that crazy an idea.
so she believed that someone who owed her 100 dollars gave her a gift card worth 50,000 dollars? really? thats quite a stretch. if shed just kept her mouth shut she could have scammed them forever. stupid is as stupid does.@@xpusostomos
I remember that pole to mesure the level in the tank. We also had a product were used on the pole to see how much water was in the tank as well. You just brought back a lot of memories there!
Steve, I remember "sticking the tank" I worked in two gas stations, one was an independent I worked at when I was a student, and a Sunoco as a parttime job later on (remember the Sunoco "custom blending pump, Sunoco 260 was the ship, everybody that had a 'race car' needed Sunoco 260") this was back in the 70's when unleaded was just coming on, and leaded was still the norm.
Oh I would argue that she tried to pay she even stuck the card in twice
Plus, it isn't out of the ordinary to swipe your card twice. I do it all the time - especially when I am trying to use my Costco member card at the Kroger gas station!
😂😂😂
If I were her I'd argue that it wasn't theft because I was just putting the pump into "demonstration mode" to demonstrate how it works 😁
She's facing jail time, but if the pump was overcharging the public for 100x as much, they'd at best send everyone impacted a check for 10 bucks and pay a fine for a quarter of what they profited. Were I on the jury, i'd not find guilty.
Corporations typically only pay fines that are 10% of profits from illegal actions.
If this had been her card I could see it but it was someone else’s card and she was selling the gas too. It was really more like a criminal enterprise than an individual taking advantage of a loophole.
You must not believe in the jury system. Your expected to find guilty on the fact not, emotions.
But that would be different, if there was a pump error the company didn’t know about. I don’t think you could argue that this woman didn’t know she was getting free gas. Maybe you could argue she thought it was authorized because someone gave her the card, and maybe that person had won free gas or something.
Rewards cards can’t be passed around. Let’s say it was her card and she used 600 gallons of gas. (Which is twice the amount of the average person) She still sold 6,800 gallons. Straight up theft.
I used to deliver gasoline to stations and most now have meters in the tanks that work similar to your car's gas gauge. We would press a button on a panel (usually in the office or backroom of the station) to get a printout of how much fuel was in each of the tanks in both inches and gallons. We would then "stick" the tank to confirm the printout both before and after delivery. We always had two measuring sticks on the trailer, one for gas and the other for diesel.
Its funny Steve mentioned "sticking the tanks". I worked at a Shell gas station from 1979 to 1981 and had to stick the tanks at the end of my shift each night when I closed. I also had to read the total gallons of each pump which looks like an odometer on the face of each pump. I think even the newer digital pumps have that same total gallons odometer.
After determining the total gallons of gas sold and the figure from sticking the tank, it wouldn't take very long to notice 1,000 gallons of gas missing when you start figuring out total sales each night. I had a lengthy sheet I had to fill out of total cash sales, total credit card sales, and my tank reads. If something didn't add up correctly, I had some explaining to do. And this was all done on pen and paper. In this age of digital sales and record keeping, I don't understand how in the hell it took so long to notice 7,000 gallons of gas missing. That is more than two full tanker deliveries.
And I will tell you something else, that gas station won't eat the loss. They will pass it on to those buying their gas at that station now through higher prices. Ask those customers if they think its funny
Jury nullification is a thing. Prosecutor will want to make a deal in this case.
I'd definitely nullify if I was on that jury. That's their fuck up. It'd be your fuck up if it happened to you. Should be the same for a business.
One time, I got a Rottweiler-size lion toy for $20 because a grocery store employee made a mistake and didn’t print $80. The assistant manager was so angry swiping his authorization with a sneer like “somebody is in big trouble 😡😤😖”
Americans will use anything to measure with except the metric system.
I got a $2500 PC setup for $1000 once because of a price tag error. Didn't even know until the GM had to come and override everything. They took the time to make sure I didn't swap the tags. I it was worth it to both of us to take 45 minutes to ring me up.
I once got a $50 bucket of 800 ethnanol wipes for $5 because the cash register was wrong. I pointed it out and the cashier said "Well that's what the register says." If it weren't the last bucket I would have gon back and bough all of them.
A grocery store selling lion toys. I might guess that product is outside of the core business of the store. In my state of residence the price at the register is the price. This solution was a result of lobbing by retailers who wanted relief from discrepancies between advertised price, published to get customers in the door, and register price which often failed to include the published discount. It is not worth noting that the errors almost always were in favor of the store.
That's interesting because in the UK in a shop/store a misprinted tag in-store does NOT have to be honoured. In the UK you are essentially invited to make an offer in a concept known as "Invitation to Treat" (based on the sticker price for an item) ... but the actual contract of buying/selling happens at the moment of exchanging money for the item (the till / checkout). The exchange of money for goods is effectively agreeing the contract - no physical contract or verbal agreement need exist - the exchange is enough. If it were seen that obviously an item was mispriced the shop has a right to withdraw their invitation for you to buy it.
Prison, prison, prison, she knew what was going on or she wouldn't have accepted the card.
My checking account once had $20,000 more in it than it should have. I called BoA and after a few hours it wasn't there anymore. I never had to appear before a judge.
It might be hard to prosecute the dead guy, but I’d bet everything they’re damn sure gonna try…. 🤣😂🤣….. God, the justice system in this country is broken beyond repair….. 🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️
How did he die, and where is this "car"?
well we only have her word for this really.
If he is a MAGA fan they’ll prosecute!!
@@maddhatter3564 Right, I wonder if this guy ever existed? Sounds like a story made up to shift responsibility.
The woodchuck needs a rewards card
I’d suggest a Viper key would be more entertaining.
LOL He could fill up the Viper
510 and ten times. OH my. I fill my truck up about 30 times a year. How long was this going on? What about her friends, are they going to be charged as well?
This is something where the gas company and the rewards card company needs to be called out. They had a job here.
When banks fail the government uses taxpayer dollars to clean up the mess. The bankers get their bonuses and move on. Nassim Taleb calls this the "Robert Rubin fraud".
The true measure of ones character is what one does when one can get away with it.
My personal adage: "It's only a felony if you get caught." Which is true, and NO, I'm not a criminal. xD
Lol who the fuck cares if a multi billion dollar has station chain loses a few grand?
@@iuse9646God does, if you believe that sort of thing. Somehow how my parents programmed me with this thing called integrity. Hate it but love it more at the same time😎
Too bad politicians and corporations are not held to the same standards.
Well I'm no thief but the other day I was buying a bunch of expensive fencing I looked at the register girl and asked her did you scan those 8 posts she looked at me like I was an asshole for questioning her doing her job and went on ringing stuff up I got 300 dollars worth of fence posts for free not my fault the girl sucked at doing her job and I did my part by bringing it to her attention 🤷♂️ at that point it was on her if she wants to give stuff away for free instead of check her screen to see if she scanned them
I believe this story was in Detroit some years ago, where guys had a hole cut in the floor of their vehicle would stop over the in ground tank filler, drop a hose in and pump out gas!
Like a lot of thefts like this, she got caught because she got greedy. Had she took only what she needed, this may have gone on for a long time unnoticed.
Sounds like a civil issue... between the pumps and the software devs.
It's probably both. And if she's convicted the person that bought the gas from her is probably guilty of receiving stolen goods.
Most of us have been ripped off by vending machines multiple times over the years. Taken our money but not given the product. The owner of the vending machine will deny it happened. Can we have the owner of the vending machine charged with theft?
The person/company that wrote the software should be ponying up for the poor security in their "Demo" mode feature.
If I were her I'd argue that it wasn't theft because I was just putting the pump into "demonstration mode" to demonstrate how it works 😁
The card was used over 3xs every day.
This was a business for her.
Dont know if I would call it a business, sounds more like a racket she is getting paid from other people while they get free gas too, that is theft.@@cplmpcocptcl6306
They would want me on their jury.
It’s the gift that keeps on giving Clark
I remember a story from years ago that a station had put the wrong price in the pumps, slipped a decimal place, so it was 100 times cheaper. Word too, got around, and they had a long line of people sucking out as much as they could. But, they were paying the offered price. I remember talks of charges of theft then too, but how can that even be considered if the people did nothing wrong from a regular gas station interaction? I never found out the aftermath.
The problem here the people knew or should have known this was a mistake and they are stealing. We had a gas station that did that in Abilene TX many many years ago. That stations lost tons of profit until they figure out the pump was missed price.
some times they have cheap gas proms so how can that be stealing? @@kfelix2934
Why did it take so long (visits and gallons of gas) before they figured it out? Shouldn't the card company bare some responsibility along with the station for this to happen? If I sat on the jury, I'd have a problem convicting the woman.
The card company is (kinda) the gas station, it's a company reward card used to earn credit towards free gas when you make purchases with some other card (or cash), you could argue the pump vendors have responsibility but it is completely unrelated to the card company since this was something that was programmed into the pump itself, the type of card it was expecting to be put in demonstration mode could have been set to any form of card it just seems for some reason they chose rewards cards when they updated them
The gas station could probably use their vendor but I don't think that makes this thief any less guilty criminally.
I mean $27,000 is only, what, 35 - 40 gallons lol
Steve, don't forget to put the goop on the end of the measuring stick before sticking it in the tank that tells you if there's water in the gas station's tank!
No, no, no, no! I disagree Mr. Lehto: If I prepay for $20 worth of gas and the thing gives me $30 by accident, first of all I probably wouldn't notice. Secondly if I did notice after it was in my tank, they'd have to pump it out because I might not have the $10 on me or in my budget, and they can pay me for the time I have to wait due to their malfunction.
It wasn't that though. She knew she was exploiting the system to get something she wasn't supposed to have.
This is pretty unfair, it wasn't a minor difference, it was a major amount like having $20 worth of gas and getting $100 worth of gas using it. Something which you should at least question and inquire about or else it becomes gross negligence.
@@dragons_reddo we really know that? Prepaid cards are a thing, and she got it for a debt.
*When she bonded out, she probably paid in gas.*
Lol
Love the T-shirt. I lived in Hurst, Texas growing up and I listened to Q102 and KZEW. The strange looking elephant would stomp on the ground and bubble gum would be stuck to it's foot. They didn't play bubble gum rock, just Classic and Album rock.
Sounds like when the airline websites have a boo-boo for flights and folks buy 'em and then the airline cancels the tickets because of the fat-finger boo-boo.
Why was it called a rewards card if there was no rewards??? Why was the software company not held liable??? They were obviously incompetent! The SCOTUS has said that corporations are people too! but, you will not ever see one in jail.
If they had robbed you of a discount for ten million customers there would be no criminal prosecution. They call it a civil matter. Reverse it and the state is aggressive in prosecution.
@cjrock4096 How is delivering an insufficient product not fraud.
@@Don-mi6zl-- If the software company had intended to give out free gas, that would be fraud. If it was negligence, then it's a common tort.
@cjrock4096 neither did she -- but their negligence is what led to the problem -- the gas station company should sue the software company and win no contest
@@TheRealScooterGuy double standard. Being too stupid shouldn't be an excuse.
How is it someone takes gas against the will of the owner that is a crime, but if someone takes free housing against the will of the owner, and that is a civil matter?
Free housing doesn't involve taking anything. There would be some scenarios where pumping free gas is a civil matter... Like if you had a credit account, and didn't pay
How is taking and damaging a house, which has significant value arguably enough to be priced well above the threshold of felony theft, any different then taking any other item of value.
Not apples and apples but I had an issue of a person dumping garbage in my yard repeatedly. Even had video of them pulling up, taking the trash out of their car and ripping the bag open and dumping it in my yard. Nope that’s a civil matter. So I said to the officer, so I can come and dump trash in your yard, or in the yard at the city building and it’s simply a civil matter? Isn’t this considered illegal dumping per city ordinance and a misdemeanor? Then I get the whole back peddling ect ect, because they never like it when it’s them that’s the one that’s the subject of the “crime”. The funny thing is I didn’t even know who the guy was that was doing it. But supposedly he thought that my house was the house of the person his wife had had an affair and left him for. I mean I get him being angry but still isn’t right. I still see that guy every once in a while and he still doesn’t make eye contact with me.
My point is the law is enforced kinda funky in this country. And I assure you if I leave for vacation and come home to people living in my house I’m not sure what I’ll do but I’m not taking it’s a civil matter as an answer.
"They left the door unlocked, that's why I took the TV." Not going to hold up in court.
I once was falsely convicted and imprisoned for 1000 days, where the police state held me captive and didn't pay me a dime for the work I did.
When I won my appeal and walked out the back door a month later (after winning my appeal, they don't rush or want to let you go)... they still didn't pay me one red cent, nor say they were sorry.
So take that criminal charge to the bank and cash it for me. Let's not even start with the 85 years the United States government enforced slavery before the Civil War. Or the massive amount of land theft from the native americans. Considering how much of the price of gasoline is actually taxes, I see no problem with this. If that's how they set up the Rewards Card program to work, that's on them, not her for using it to get her gas. Demo mode is demo mode. Looks like they sucessefully demo'd how your experience really should be at the pump... free gas.
This is one of those situations where you have to wonder: would she have been caught if she had only gassed up her own vehicle as needed?
Swiping your rewards card and getting fuel without being charged COULD go unnoticed, but this woman clearly DID notice it so sucks for her.
hard to plead you did not know it was happening when you would sell the gas.
The Zoo T shirt !! I Have two of them. Right on!! my favorite radio station back in the late 70s and 80
Here in Australia I think that would come under “Larceny by Mistake or fault of a machine.”
I think I would go after the people who made the mistake programming the gas pump.
Thank you being a voice of morality!
A person "is" how he acts when he thinks no one is watching.
That's called integrity
As far as I know, New Jersey is now the only state that prohibits people from pumping their own gas. So you still have to deal with a person handling the cared or cash.
I am from Lincoln Nebraska. Interesting aspect is there is only one pump and pantry here in town. So when it was mentioned I knew exactly where this happened. Which would have made it difficult to hide.
So if a politician uses a 'loophole' to expense out millions of dollars of friends and family favors, it's just fine.
But a middle aged lady uses a loophole to get a critical consumer good, and everyone loses their minds!
I was thinking the same thing- rich folks use tax loopholes all the time, but using a rewards card loophole is a no-no, eh? 🧐
@ralphferley2602 crying about having to pay your fair share is unpatriotic.
@@karenneill9109 This isn't a loophole, and shouldn't be referred to as such. It's an exploit. The card isn't being used as intended.
Ralph: you took it too far with the "belongs in prison" bit.
Ride your government to close the loopholes to benefit themselves unethically. They won’t do it. But, those who will excuse thieves because “well the other guys do it” is unethical themselves and endorse thieves.
I read a story a few years ago about a man that went into his bank and picked up a stack of deposit slips,took them home and put his account number on the account number line and carried them back and put them on the stack. He wound up with over a million dollars in his account. He didn’t get to spend it because he was in jail.
LoL!
As I heard it, he had deposit slips professionally printed with his account number. He went branch to branch, seeding the sneaky deposit slips into the deposit slips in the waiting rooms.
He was caught because a bank detective went branch to branch depositing seven cents in each branch, until one of the ridiculous deposits didn't show up. The bank then looked for any other account gaining seven cents, and there was only one.
The scams have gotten sneakier.