'Detained' at petrol station for not having my bank card

[Willowcat77]

Yesterday I stopped at my local village petrol station to refuel. I was on my way to pick up my DS for an important hospital appointment. I am a regular customer as it is the only petrol station/shop in the area and always get my car MOT'd there. My DP has been a customer/friend of the owners for over 20 years.

I went to the counter to pay but then realised that I'd left my bank card at home. The shop assistants knew me by sight so I said I'm really sorry but I'll need to go home to get my card, my house is only 5 minutes down the road. The assistant told me no, I would have to phone someone to pay for me and that I was forbidden to leave the premises!

I was very taken aback, but I phoned my DP. Unfortunately he wasn't answering his phone so I had to leave a voicemail. There was nobody else I could phone in the area. I was very worried about missing the hospital appointment, so I tried to reason with the shop assistants. I explained the situation and offered to leave my phone and £20 cash as security whilst I fetched my card. My petrol bill was £39. They knew I was local and my DP and I have spent 1000s of pounds there over the years.

They refused, saying if necessary I would have to stay there all day until my DP came to pay for me. They said this was "the rule". I wanted to speak to the owner but he wasn't in. I have ASD and am easily panicked. I was getting later and later for the hospital appointment and could feel I was having a proper ASD meltdown. I was getting so distressed I couldn't even redial my DPs number any more and had to ask them to do it. Eventually, after about 20 minutes, DP unexpectedly arrived and paid for me. I still feel very upset and that I can't ever go there again out of embarrassment.

My DP has since found out they did something similar to an older lady recently who was also local and a regular customer.

Aibu to feel I was treated badly and to make a complaint to the owner today? What were my rights in this situation? Could I have left to get the money?

Cohle
So that you have to go into the shop to pay, where you end up buying other items. The cost of installing the technology is also a barrier.

In the US, you pay at the pump. You can't use the pump unless you swipe your card/chip/phone first. You don't have to go into the service station unless you are paying in cash.
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Yes I understand that Math.

Currently in the UK you usually do have to go into the shop and that makes you more likely to purchase other items. Losing out on those extra purchases is partly why petrol stations in the UK apparently don't want to move to the "pay in advance" system.

I would therefore take the poor mouth of the spokesman of the petrol retailers association wrt cost of installing pay at the pump capacity with a big pinch of salt.

They could still encourage solid retail business by offering a small price differential between card and cash purchases.

Willowcat77
Did your dh speak with the owner about what happened?

When we needed new pumps at our garage we didn't consider the pay at the pumps ones, we rely on them buying other things from the shop, booking their cars in at the workshop etc. We can't afford to loose that trade the margins in fuel are so small.
We didn't bother checking the cost of them when we found out that the refurbished pumps we went for, four in total cost £27000. It took use the the first two years to he able to absorb that and probably the same again before they had paid for themselves.

It amazes me that many if the posters who are commenting on how poorly the garaged behaved when they don't know the finances if running such a business and their own livelihood depends on it.

We can take payments over the phone, give details for Bacs payments, they can use our phone, our internet if need be. We are not detaining them, we are trying to get them to pay. Getting someone to met them, doing it over the phone for them, using their phone banking app, plenty ways to pay before they need to leave. With a bit of effort most of the time it can be sorted but for some they just what to leave and come back. For me, if they could do one of the above but choose not to I would wonder if they would come back at all and why they would not try every avenue first.

I was thinking more like having cold stations. There is only the pump. You pay by card. There is no shop and no employees. Also I'm not sure how much I trust the petrol station association person :D Obviously this dont make sense if it's a private person owning the station that relies on people purchasing other items. I would have thought that by now a big ass chain would have taken over with the cold stations and then have stations with shops and restaurants in resting stops. I'm not sure I'm encouraging it, but I do find it surprising.

Well according the the Petrol Retailers Association (who you don't trust ) "although many people had the impression that petrol stations were run by big oil companies, 70% of the UK's filling stations were actually independently owned."

So most are not owned by "big ass chains".

I am just merely suprised that a big company hasn't taken over yet. I read the article and it's great they are owned by private people (which I did assume was the case cause they are small and all look different). I would have expected that a big company would have come over and taken over the petrol stations. We shall see if it happens.

I'm just not certain based on that information that I trust their information regarding the saving of having non-prepaid pumps but otherwise I'm sure it's a great association.

Short answer: yes YABVU.

I'm sorry you have ASD but it is YOUR responsibility to ensure you have you card/money if you buy petrol, but then you know this.

Yes it was a genuine error but you have learned a valuable lesson and will be unlikely to do it again.

You want us to say the station staff were unreasonable but they weren't.

As others have said: it is a criminal offence to leave without paying for your petrol and you're lucky you weren't arrested.

Feel bad, learn your lesson, move on.

One of the Shell stations close to us did move to pay before you pump a few years ago, but it only lasted about a year before they switched back- I’m now wondering why it didn’t work for them.

@FelicisNox Incorrect. They cannot by law detain anyone. They have to take your details and have you sign a document to say you'll pay within 7 days and then let you go. Nobody has the authority to detain anyone besides police or security guards awaiting police presence. Like it or not, that's the law

You want us to say the station staff were unreasonable but they weren't.
Yes they were op had every intention of paying thetnj had no right to detain her. In fact they stopped her from paying much faster.
She was a friend of the owner, her dhs friend for 20 years. A regular customer. They were ridiculous.

Maybe her DP, the friend of the owner, should ask his friend what his policies are on taking the cost of pump and runners out of the staff pay packets?

How could the OP think that the staff would recognise her? These people probably see hundreds of customers every hour.

How could she imagine that the staff could let her run home to get her CC and then try to explain to some other customer in the same predicament that they couldn't afford them the same courtesy?

I HAVE DONE IT TWICE!! Both times it was because I had lots on my mind. But both times the petrol station took my details and gave me 2 hours to come back and pay! One petrol station did not know me and the other had seen me a few times. Perhaps I was just lucky. I understand it is meant to be a criminal offence.....ok...but surely it would be easier to just take the details and if someone doesnt pay up then ring the police?

The police in many places have better things to do with their time and resources than chasing up customers who haven't paid for goods when the only reason this situation happens is that petrol station owners are too cheap to install the technology that would make customers pay first. They expect taxpayers to subsidise them. Why should the police, paid for by all taxpayers, contribute to the profit margins of petrol station owners?

Supermarkets employ security guards and security cameras to stop theft, before you argue that the police get involved in retail theft all the time. Taking names and addresses is a very poor substitute for spending actual money on measures to prevent theft.