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?

Also, for all they knew, you might have been travelling on business and needed a receipt for your petrol to claim expenses.

What you did was 100% correct. The cashier should have corrected THEIR mistake and not made it YOUR problem.

@Phugs You did absolutely everything right OP and well done for standing up to what sound like a couple of misogynistic pigs. (I'm glad you got moral support from another customer too - that sort of intervention seems quite rare these days.)

I could not to a bank transfer in the shop anyway, I don’t have the bank app on my phone and don’t want it! I prefer to do online banking at home on my iPad when it’s private and I have time to make sure I don’t make mistakes. I worry
( possibly unnecessarily) that if my phone gets stolen, someone can access my bank account! My iPad never leaves the house.

You should have said that you needed a VAT receipt for the value that you spent so couldn’t pay him, because he can’t give you a receipt. It’s unbelievable that even the manager said it would your problem and between you and the other guy.

This is awful OP. I hope you can forget about it soon. It could be a scam. But I’m wondering if the cashier was also feeling intimidated and didn’t want to refund the customer and face any aggro towards him? If your amount was less perhaps he thought angry man might’ve turned on him when asked to pay more? Then he felt safe to fix the transaction when the police attended?
obviously not saying that makes it right! He should’ve refunded for sure.

That can’t really happen very easily as to log into my bank app it needs either my face or a three digit pin. So if someone did steal my phone, good luck getting into my banking app etc. if they try to change the passcode etc they then need a card reader and my card and separate pin. It was a soon in the arse when I changed phone.

If its part of chain I'd go to the head office with a written complaint. The bank transfer thing is total nonsense and no one in their right mind would do that. Who paid for his fuel then or was it the same amount?

Also, if he'd of already left before they realised then surely youe fuel should have been free if paid for?

OP you were in the right. I can’t set up a payee without my card reader which I don’t carry.

It's ridiculous because not everybody puts in "the £20" of fuel that you seem to assume they do.

Well of course if two people happened to have pumped exactly the same value of fuel but realistically that's very unlikely to be the case

The cashier must have been very new? Surely.

I cannot think of any circumstance where this would be proposed as the solution. I run a shop, btw,

And that right there is how the scam works!

Shell garages around here are known for their shady behaviour. I’ve called the police myself when a Shell cashier got a colleague to block my car as I was “leaving without paying”, he just kept saying my payment had been refused and I had to give him cash, but I checked my app and the payment was showing. Then he said that the police would take too long and I would never get where I was going so just pay (and he said “again” so he DID know I’d paid). Police attended, checked my app, took my statement and told them to allow me to leave. Officer who escorted me back to the car said I’d done the right thing, that they’d been called to the same situation before and advised me to NEVER pay cash because then there is no real proof as they claim their till roll has run out. You did exactly the right thing OP!

Good. You've done nothing wrong. I wouldn't have transferred the money either.

Errrr no!

OP you were 100% in the right - the mistranslation was between the man and the petrol station- absolutely nothing to do with you. And I agree it sounds very much like the cashier was in on it too, although how they let it get to the stage where the man was arrested is beyond me.

This makes sense

Sounds awful I'm glad you didn't cave. I'm not sure if it's a scam as I suspect incompetent guy in the till is more likely but it could easily be.

I don't understand how the station manager can't understand that you might need a receipt with the actual vendor for tax/expenses purposes and that you might not even be able to do a bank transfer on the spot she even if you could you might not want a stranger who already knows your license details knowing your name etc from the bank transfer on their statement.

Why would the angry man scammer hang around for the police? Was he being physically restrained while you waited for them?

He was waiting for me to give him “his” money back. Police were with us in less than 5 minutes after being called.

At a Shell garage, I parked my car by the pump and sat in it setting up the (sometimes cumbersome) pay-by-app service. Once the pump was ‘opened’, a motorcyclist zoomed into the gap and started filling up. An innocent mistake - he assumed I’d finished. I was unable to cancel the already-started fuelling. At the cashier, I explained I had been charged for his fuel via the app. The cashier stood back while the guy gave me the cash. They were otherwise unable to suggest any action they could take. It was all a bit complicated to the uninitiated, but we got there. When I realised he had also had my £1 discount, he offered me a quid. I declined.

Funnily enough I have had exactly this!!! The petrol station man said he couldn't refund it and wanted me to transfer the money to his own account - WTF??!! Another suggestion was that I paid and did cash back to give the other person the money. It was really awful, he was making out that I was being difficult when all I wanted to do was pay for MY petrol. Mine was £30 which the other guy had paid, his was only £9 or something. In the end I went and got cash out a cashpoint to reimburse the other customer but I'm not sure this was the right thing to do.

I worry about my daughter (about to learn to drive) being in these sort of situations where even myself as an older women would struggle to stand my ground.

Put it on the local Facebook and NextDoor sites. I BET other folk will have experienced this as well.

Good for you! I think I’d have turned to them both & said, your lack of competence is not my issue to solve.
But I realise I’d have also probably got a smack 🤣
Not a chance in hell I would’ve refunded the customer via bank transfer. Nor would I have paid for his fuel.

It sounds like we should all start asking for receipts if we use Shell petrol pumps!

OP, you did exactly the right thing by saying no transfer to the drunken scumbag. I hope that you’re ok now.