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?

That is just shocking OP, thought it was going to be some side of the road independent station, not a flipping Shell!!!

Don’t be ridiculous!

Of course, but the whole situation was so avoidable!! Its madness it had to go that far.

Oh absolutely no way would I have transferred the money. All the other objections aside, you’d then have no proof you’d paid for your petrol at all!

You did the right thing OP. It must happen once in a while that the wrong pump is paid for and there must be a set procedure for that (like refunding the customer who paid the wrong pump). I think it’s vanishingly unlikely that the procedure is for you to transfer the funds to the man. I would have done the same as you. It does look like a scam. I would want proof that I had paid the petrol station, otherwise if you had transferred the funds to the man, it could end up unfairly looking like theft on your part. Good for you for holding your ground.

I did think that maybe they were in on it together, my thought process later was that the customer hadn’t paid for my fuel, the cashier insists I “refund” the customer, I walk away without any proof of payment and later I get a letter claiming non-payment.

I probably would have just transferred the money OP or if there was a cash point, gone outside to withdraw cash before handing it over.

But that’s because I would have felt intimidated into doing so.

The actual right thing to do was what you did - the garage should have refunded the man/charged him correctly and then generated your bill to pay. Absolute BS to say they can’t do that.

I really hope Shell head office back you up and the petrol station staff get a bollocking as they created the situation, not you.

Hopefully the drunk man wasn't the driver, I guess the other man pumped and he went in to pay and said the wrong number

I can't imagine it was a scam, a combination of a drunk and a cashier maybe lacking training. Suggesting one customer pays another is a bizarre solution

I wondered this too.

i work in a petrol station, sometimes people give the wrong number pump by mistake. When this happens, I sort it on the till, refunding the one who over paid and putting the correct amount through for the other person, no problem. I think your cashier maybe isn’t authorised to do refunds and since he was alone he wanted the customers to sort it instead. This shouldn’t be the case though, the store should have just dealt with it right away

How much was his fuel? Could definitely be a scam, he fills up the tank to full then the chances are the other users are putting in less?

Me too. I'd have just said I don't have a banking app.

I don't see how you owed the man money. It was petrol station that took his money, not you. Petrol station should pay him back.

Why is that ridiculous?

I’ve been in a petrol station before where the person in front accidentally gave the wrong pump number and paid the £20 for mine.

No drama, I just paid the £20 for theirs.

I wasn’t getting in to that, the amounts would have almost certainly been different and at that point I just wanted a proof of payment for the right amount so there was no comeback on me. Plus, the error was nothing to do with me at all so didn’t want to do anything that might complicate it or muddy the water.

The cashier maybe didn't know how to do refunds or it is too much work (have to get a senior to authorise).
The police seem to take more interest in petrol theft than any other shoplifting ( is it because most of the cost is tax).
As a matter of interest op was his bill bigger than yours (perhaps he had seen a smaller amount on your pump than his and hoped that you would think you were on his). What sort of money are we talking of.
So much easier with an EV not having to go to garages anymore and come across these people

Sounds awful. Post on their social media also.

OP says the drunk man drove in and his passenger drove the car away. No idea if that was before or after his mate was arrested for being a scumbag?!

How unnerving for you this must have been - so out of the ordinary.

Your contract for fuel was with the petrol station, so they are the only people you needed to pay.

They could have rung up £50 of mars bars if they needed to, in order to get your money.

Absolutely nothing needed between you and the random (ranting) man

You have done nothing wrong petrol station were being ridiculous. I’ve had it happen before and the staff had me pay what I owed. Their petrol cost more than mine by about six quid but they’d left but they reckoned they were local so would catch them next time.

I think they should of been able to refund bloke, less whatever his petrol was then you should of paid your bill. I assume bloke was rather dodgy given the car drive off and he got aggressive. I think there is a bit of me that can’t believe people behave like this.

You're right, I missed that bit, still doesn't sound like any kind of workable scam to me

Well done to you for sticking to your rights . You did everything right . Ignore the idiot on the till 😱

To be honest, if I wasn’t for being supported by the other customer who intervened, I might have been pressured in to paying him. Thank goodness for random strangers doing the right thing.

so in 2 werks time when the police came to arrest you for not paying for your petrol what proof would you have had that you had paid if you’d just transferred the money to other customer? No this is all on the other customer and the petrol station.

OP, that’s outrageous. Apart from anything else, not everyone does online banking. I most certainly wouldn’t have dreamt of transferring money to some randomer’s account, and I would also have wanted to know whether his petrol cost precisely the same as mine, because if not, why were they not refunding him and charging him what he owed and getting you to pay for your petrol? The whole thing sounds most unpleasant, and you, OP, were definitely not being unreasonable.

I've accidentally paid for the wrong pump before. (Cashier just put it though and I didn't realise it was the wrong amount/pump until just after I'd paid). The cashier just refunded me, then I paid for the right pump. This is something that must happen fairly regularly and is easy to sort.

I'd be very suspicious in your circumstances too OP. Sounds really scary.