'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?

No, she wasn’t calling you a shoplifter. She was saying that shoplifters are detained.

In this case, I think they took a hammer to crack a nut. I highly doubt the staff were acting without management guidance though, and they obviously don’t have the latitude to make decisions based on individuals.

That is the part the garage owner needs to re-examine and hopefully you will receive an apology.

The Applepay point is a good one though. I’ve just set that up, so thank you PP as I always have that “shit have I got my purse” moment mid-tank fill if I’m not on a pre-pay pump.

It is a criminal offence but OP would not have been prosecuted because she spoke to the cashier. She didn't intend to steal the fuel and by leaving to get payment she would not have gone on to commit the offence of 'making off without payment'.
Dishonest intent is required.
They also could not detain her though it's a gray area because someone with a reasonable suspicion that someone has commuted an indictable offence can detain them for s reasonable period until police arrive. However they shouldn't detain you without good reason and even then only if they have called the police.
They treated you horribly, complain to the owner and take your business elsewhere.

This is such a common occurrence in petrol stations in surprised they could be bothered with faffing about and "detaining" you! I worked in numerous petrol stations over the course of 15 years and all that ever happened was the customer filled in an Admission of Debt (AOD) form with the relevant detains, showed some ID and left. If they didn't pay within a certain time frame then the debt got passed on to a debt collection agency.

There are so many different reasons why people can't pay, forgotten card, card out of date, forgetting pin, card declined, picked up nectar card instead of bank card. Sometimes people were driving from the other end of the country and only realized their wallet was at home after filling up 6 hours into their journey so it wasn't reasonable to expect any kind of resolution to them not being able to pay there and then. For most people is was a genuine mistake and they were mortified at not being able to pay. in contrast, there were some local people who would use the AOD form as a mean to get petrol at the end of the month in the run up to pay day, or those who would complain when we told them they couldn't include the cost of their cigarettes in their debt.

I'm very surprised this petrol station doesn't have a better syst for dealing with this very common occurrence. I'm more surprised at you being able to get your MOT done there, can't say I ever did one of those.

I would have just walked out especially if I had a hospital appointment.

The police aren't going to do anything, they've got too few resources and too many crimes to deal with. If you went back and paid, move on, nothing to see here.

And as a pp said, for theft there has to be intention to permanently deprive. If you intend to go back a few minutes/hours later to pay, there is clearly no intention to permanently deprive.

I also wonder what they would do if you only had one card and it was declined for whatever reason.

You can’t blame the pump attendant / cashier. They risk their job to go against policy, and you / your DH should not complain about the conduct of the attendant.

What you could do is suggest they have a procedure for regular customers etc.

They also cannot take responsibility for knowing that you were too ‘ditsy’ to think of leaving the car to walk back for your card, and the cashier wouldn’t know you lived near enough to suggest it themselves.

You need this garage, they need customers. Make a constructive suggestion not a complaint.

@T0getherindreams what is the offence?

I really don't think it is (I'm a lawyer and in early days had clients who were charged with making off without payment) but prepared to be told I'm wrong. I don't do much petrol theft these days

They handled it very badly indeed. It’s bad enough if it was Tesco Im London and shocking in a small local petrol station where they know you.

I live in a similar place and would expect them just to take a note and trust me to hand it in later. Let’s face it, if they do your MOT they know all your details anyway.

I have done this - gone out, picked up my bag but forgotten my purse.
I know several others who have also done the same.
Fuel stations will normally have a "Book"- you will have to fill in all details, and you get a limited time to return with the means to pay. Some it's later the same day, others up to three days.

The shop assistants were out of order, they are not the police, they can't physically restrain you so I would have left the £20 and gone back later.

@BeckyWithTheSplitEnds is correct. They have no legal grounds to detain you unless they suspect you have committed a criminal offence which clearly you had not. In future, write out all your details, including car reg, name, address, phone number etc with brief circs of what occurred and state you will return and pay.

If the shop staff then forcibly detain you then it is unlawful arrest

@lastqueenofscotland"

"Fuelling your car without checking you have a means to pay before hand is a criminal offence. "
Failing to check you have the means to pay beforehand is is not an offence in England and Wales.
Making away without paying is theft.

Normally if you find you haven't the means to pay you have to fill in a 'NMtP' form and return within 48 hours to pay it. In reality you will be encouraged to get someone else to pay the bill for you and the form is only used as a last resort.

In this case the staff asked the OP to find someone else to pay for it.

OP, if you had left without paying you could have been charged with a criminal offence unless you have been given and completed the NMtP form before leaving to get the means to pay.

@itstimeforslime'
"And when I did pay I’d have done so in bloody coppers to spite them."
You could come unstuck with that idea. The Coinage Act 1971 states that in any one transaction copper 1p and 2p coins are only legal tender up to 20p and 50p coins are only legal tender in one transaction up to £10.
Although a lot of traders probably do accept them, they don't have to.

It's just standard. It's happened to my dad lots of times, not me yet thankfully! It's just what happens I wouldn't get in a tizz over it. The fact your local and a regular is irrelevant really. I understand it made you anxious, but just the way it is unfortunately. Absolutely don't be embarrassed, it happens to lots of people you just forgot your card that's all!

OP, as you are a regular customer I would definitely return and discuss the situation with the owner. Hopefully you will get an explanation and an apology.

If it is not satisfactory, then I would post on your local social media about the experience.

Sorry but you’re coming across as very entitled. Your DP has no reason to complain, the garage didn’t do anything wrong? Doesn’t matter if they ‘know’ you. They have procedures they need to follow. I’d never leave the house without checking I have my bank card / cash on me.

Here, the pumps won't work until you've paid, either with your card at the pump, or inside. It seems so weird that gas stations would deal with all this nonsense when they could install prepay pumps.

This happened to me but shopping not petrol, Morrison's were great and just took my name and address, and told me to stop by customer services the next day to pay, I took my shopping home. I do spend a lot of money there!

I am honestly taken aback at the number of people who've done this. You live and learn.

Wow is this legal? I have had this happen twice where my card declined grrr. They took my details and I came back the same/next day to pay.

That was it. If they threatened to not let me leave, I would have phoned the police.

This happened to me the other day. I had thought my purse was in my handbag but I had forgotten it was on the sideboard from when I'd paid the window cleaner that morning. I explained and offered to leave my bag with the person at the shop. They said no don't worry, happens all the time. They simply took a note of my car reg and the pump number and I popped home and got it. I'd have walked out if they tried to detain me, there is no way they have the powers to do that.

I would complain and the garage definitely did something wrong if they want you to keep paying for your MOTs there and using their petrol station. There was no need whatsoever to hold you there all day "if necessary" when they knew where you lived and could easily establish that you had a good payment record if they had actually wanted to. Involving the police would have been a massive waste of police time. They knew they would be taking close to 0% risk in letting you go home to get your money. Yes, you might have died in a crash before you got back, but ffs. If they were that worried the owner would sack them, then he's a pretty naff boss, or they already have a track record of being lousy employees.

I don't get what being a regular customer has to do with anything. I'm a regular customer at my local pub and know the owners by name but that doesn't entitle me to just pop in, have a few drinks and promise to come back when I fancied to pay. You can't exactly put the petrol back once its pumped.

Just accept that while they were heavy handed, you were at fault for taking goods in a non-replaceable way without checking you could pay for them. ASD, urgent doctors appointments are pretty much irrelevant in this transaction.

FWIW - I'm the poster on the first page who admitted they'd deliberately put petrol in the tank and knew I had no funds. How exactly were the police going to prove I'd left my card at home deliberately rather than accidentally?

Also, I have no family and my closest friend lives about 450 miles away. I might still be being "detained". At which point they'd have to charge me for a pasty too.

I would have just left they have your number plate from cctv. It's not like years ago when I first started driving and some fuel stations didn't have cctv and people would drive off all the time!
I would have said I'm going to get my bank card and just left even if they shouted no.
It's ridiculous and you had £20 on you anyway.
I'd complain and if it's a large company I'd complain to head office
It's not on, and very regimental behaviour.

If this is such a common occurrence, why don't they use any kind of technology to make sure that the pump only works after you have paid instead of detaining people?

I've done this twice at my local, both times they have laughed and let me leave to get the payment...seems very harsh when you're a regular

Why didn’t you just leave? They have your car reg and you’d me on camera so if you were to never to return again they would be able to find you.