To not transfer money at petrol station

[Phugs]

Yesterday I put fuel in the car and went in to the petrol station to pay. There were a couple of people in front of me in the queue. When I got to the front I said pump 7 please and the cashier informed me that someone had already paid for pump 7.

The man who had paid was just getting back in his car so the cashier gestured for him to come back in from his car and said he had paid for the wrong pump. Immediately he turned aggressive and started shouting at me to pay him the money back by bank transfer.

I refused, I wasn’t going to transfer money to a random person in the petrol station and it immediately felt like a scam.

I requested the cashier just refund the man his money so that I could pay my bill and he refused and started pressuring me to just “pay the man what I owe him”. The customer who had paid my fuel then started calling me a fucking bitch, saying I wasn’t fucking leaving with out paying him his money and he would “do me in” if I tried to leave. He had clearly been drinking, and his friend, who was originally a passenger drove the car away from the petrol station. At this point another customer stepped in and called the police.

The customer then got really aggressive with the man on the phone to the police and started pushing him around, it escalated really quickly and I was asking the cashier again and again to just refund the man his money so that I could pay for my fuel. I asked him to bring a manager out and he said he was manning the station on his own and there was no one else to assist.

Two female police officers arrived and the man was increasingly aggressive with them, calling them both fucking bitches and insulting their appearances. Eventually he was arrested, the cashier then could magically create me another bill and I paid.

When I was leaving the cashier told me I could have avoided the altercation if I’d just paid the man what I owed him and when I’ve tried to lodge a complaint with the petrol station manager, she’s said the same and that it was between me and the other customer to sort out, that the cashier had done nothing wrong by refusing the customer a refund.

Im fairly certain I’m not in the wrong here, would anyone transfer money to a random stranger in a petrol station and walk away without any proof of payment?

If it is a scam, don't be surprised if the CCTV has conveniently been recorded over.

Hang on to your receipt for paying or copy the transaction with any details into a file to keep just in case anything comes back to you. Note down the cashier's name, date, time, police officers names, witness if you know it.

The petrol station manager might say that you were supposed to pay for pump 2 instead of 7 and send out a nasty letter stating there would be legal action if you didn't pay what you owe within X days.

You totally did the right thing ! It’s absolutely ridiculous that they expect you to transfer to some random man’s bank account. It’s not your error whatsoever. I can’t believe the manager backed cashier up either. I’m really glad the police turned up as rapid as they did and I’m sorry you’ve had to encounter this sort of human today.

You did the right thing.

Soon as the cashier joined in I’d have just left. It was all on cctv so they could sort it out after for all I care! Especially when you were being abused!

Worse that would happen was you go back at a later date and pay.

It’s worth knowing they always give you an opportunity to pay, my mate told me after driving off forgetting to pay, they just ANPRd her when she next went in and asked her to pay. It was a BP so ANY BP she went in, they’d have asked her.

Wow, that is so scary. I would hope I would do the same as you although I am not sure if I would be brave enough. Sounds like a total scam, I wonder how many people they pulled it on.

Scam. Hou did the right thing. Tbh id probably name and shame the particular petrol station on local Facebook spotted pages and explain what happened so it doesn’t happen to others /make people aware

Good for you, and a huge well done for staying clear thinking on what just have been an intimidating situation. The whole thing sounds like a massive scam and hopefully Shell will look into it and will have cctv.

I have to say that this has happened to me once where I accidentally paid for the wrong petrol and the the petrol station refused to refund the money. They said they had checked with me which pump and I had mistakenly confirmed the wrong number (which I had) . The person who had actually used the petrol I paid for came in after me and luckily they had bought more petrol than I had so agreed to pay my petrol bill instead of theirs.

The petrol pump guy said they had no way of refunding petrol that had been paid for without proof I had not taken that petrol. In fact he was very upset when I realised after paying that I had paid for petrol from the wrong pump and made me wait for the person whose petrol I had paid for to come in and pay. It was completely my fault as I was distracted and had not paid proper attention to the amount that I was due to pay for and i misread the pump number. Also I had bought some other things which meant I didn't twig until I had made the payment

Luckily the person whose petrol I had paid for was happy to be charged for less petrol than they had actually bought and I accepted that I would have to forfeit some money and so paid a 'fine' for my carelessness, in that I paid for more petrol than I bought. I didn't ask the person to refund me for the extra petrol I had bought that they used, I was too embarrased to do that.

It was annoying as I did think the petrol station could sort it out, but they wouldn't but I was not drunk and was willing to accept some responsibility so it all worked out fine. However it taught me to be particularly careful in future.

In this case the person who made the same mistake as me was both drunk and aggressive. Petrol stations really should have a better way of dealing with this sort of thing

Wow that sounds so dodgy. And really scary. You definitely did the right thing. Glad he was arrested. Idiotic petrol station staff though.

It all sounds terrifying @Phugs . Well done for holding your ground.

Some people can't afford to pay at the pump as they charge £100 to your card and it could make thrm over drawn if they don't have £100 in there in the first place.

The pay at the pump where I live doesn't actually work like that, although it does tell you it will hold £99, but, if you've not got £99 it holds what you do have in your account and presumably cuts off when you reach that amount.
I've had less than £99 in my account and it's held the amount I do have until I've finished and then released the difference, usually before I've started the car and driven off. I've never hit the limit.

Of course not all will be the same or it might be that different banks process it differently?

Definitely YANBU. Write to the head office of the petrol station owners. Disgusting.

Refunds are easy and part of the job on a daily basis.

I hope you made it clear to the police that the aggressive guy who had been drinking was also the driver? That way he’s done for drink driving too

It sounds very much that the employee was an accomplice in this. If it was a genuine mistake, surely the only sensible thing would be to call the customer back, apologise for the mistake, refund his payment and take correct amount attached to the pump he actually used. Then to ask you to pay for your petrol, with profuse apologise for the delay.
Telling you to pay another customer is bonkers - it would not even make the till add up.

Doesn't really matter. The police were called and arrested the aggressive driver who paid the wrong bill. It seems well understood what happened. No needs for CCTV. And if an inquiry needed it, then that's going to look very bad for the petrol station owners. Enough to lose a franchise potentially.

They are usually much closer than you may realise

IDK if anyone has already said this but you could also raise it with your banks
fraud department, it sounds like a scam.

You are totally not unreasonable. The cashier should have sorted it out.

Who is the petrol station managers manager? Is it a franchise? I would escalate it, the cashier and their manager are obviously in desperate need of some training.

I hope you’re ok, sounds like a bit of a nightmare. You are completely innocent and acted appropriately I think.

I once paid for the wrong pump (pregnant, baby brain, said the wrong number 🙈), luckily the guy who had that pump came to the till next to me almost immediately and said the number and I realised. The staff refunded me immediately and we both paid for the correct fuel, took about 2 mins to sort. It must happen regularly, staff will know how to sort it.

This is bloody mad! Until recently, I worked at a garage & the procedure is: refund the difference to cust A (they're then straight & can go) then create a wrong fuel (manual) payment for the amount owing for cust B. They pay & then they can go. There's some mucking about to do clear all pumps from the till but it all comes right in the end. It's pretty straightforward & takes longer to say than do.
There are possibly two issues here. Lone working & the worker being told not to do refunds because 'the accountants don't like it'. So many things can go tits up in a petrol station that lone working is a nightmare & there should always be a support worker on at the same time.
Lone working in these circumstances is bonkers because it leads to the sort of chaos experienced by you.

Definitely should make a huge complaint to head office. I also hope the guy was done for drink driving!

Did the petrol station have an ATM where you could I’ll d have withdrawn the money and given it to the man?

It was without doubt a scam. The "customer" and the cashier were in it together, and it went south when you didn't go along with it, and another customer got involved. Well done for not folding.