'Cheating' ARCO Gasoline Pump Charges Customers Before They Get Gas

[Imagevision]

SOUTH Los Angeles (KTLA) -- A woman captured video of a wayward gas pump at a South L.A. gas station Thursday that began charging her before she ever put the pump in her car.

Montiqua Sargent claims that she was standing a pump at an Arco gas station Thursday morning at the corner of Century Boulevard and Main Street when it began to make a clicking sound. She then looked at the screen to see that the pump was beginning to charge her.

"I didn't even put in my car yet," Sargent told KTLA. "It was sitting there, in my hand."

Sargent called over another patron at the gas station and recorded the incident on her cell phone.

Sargent says she had prepaid for her the gas and when she returned to the same cashier to complain, he told her to move to another pump. She then claims that the cashier would not refund her for the initial fraudulent charge of $1.13, despite showing him the video.
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-south-la-gas-station-bad-pump,0,7933716.story?track=rss

[joeybee12]

1. Bet this isn't the only place this happens...nt

[Imagevision]

2. need to spread this one around...!

[Oceansaway]

3. K&R...n/t

[FSogol]

4. Every state has a Department of Weights and Measures who are supposed to inspect

those items. In VA it is part of the Dept. of Agriculture. Due to cuts in State funds, reduction of Govt, and GOP policies these are the types of things at the State level that get cut.

Call your State's dept. and place a formal complaint. Also contact your State's Office of Consumer affairs, file a complaint and call the local Better Business Bureau.

[Imagevision]

5. Guess the MSM consider this to be a... "non-story"

[Bandit]

9. An internet story

I need to see more evidence myself...

[Renew Deal]

11. Evidence of what?

Did you watch the video?

[Renew Deal]

10. KTLA is part of the MSM

:shrug:

[Poll_Blind]

6. People should watch the video at the link because if one watches the full video you can see that...

...the station did absolutely nothing nomatter how many times the woman informed them of the problem. It was only when the newslady went there and filmed a customer being ripped off, confronted the clerk that the problem wasn't fixed yet and called the station owner...only then, after all that...did the station owner tell the employee tape up a simple hand-drawn "Out of Order" sign on the pump.

Just infuriating.

BTW, I know gas pumps are not simple or cheap machines and given the fact that a primary function of the pump is malfunctioning I can't say tampering for profit isn't involved.

PB

[Imagevision]

8. Gas station owner seemed to wish the problem would just...go away?

[Poll_Blind]

12. I got the impression they wanted the complaining customer and the newslady to go away more than...

...the problem.

Here is some food for thought about the nature of perception: We are led to believe that while the problem persisted (and we have every reason to believe it did) for at least 8 hours, no subsequent customers caught the problem. When we deal with some kinds of machines, I think it's easy for us to assume either that they basically are always working correctly or that someone cares that they're always working correctly.

I don't drive a car, I've always used mass transit, but I can see how people using gas pumps would let their guard down in a situation like that, assuming that the machine is in good working order or that there is a responsible party who has interest in making sure it does. And in this case, combined with that perceptual blind spot I talked about, I could see it being a problem which has been around quite a while with nothing being done about it. If the pump rakes in just 30 cents more per customer, per transaction, that's still very good money to be pulling in!

PB

[Imagevision]

14. K&R!

[BeFree]

7. Yeah? And i'm supposed to be amazed? Pfffft

The voting machines do it and you can't even tell!

How do you think the republicans gained power? By being honest?

[WingDinger]

13. Had a similar event. Precharged, then had to move pump. Had to recharge card.

Guy wouldnt give reciept.