Moral Dilemma - Free Fuel?

[Trevelyan]

Had an odd situation tonight. I put £50 worth of fuel in the car, went into the shop and picked up a couple of other things ending up with a total bill of about £53. As soon as I put my fuel card into the reader the till system locked up with my transaction still displaying and couldn't process my payment any further (I hadn't put my credit card in yet so don't think there were any dodgy shenanigans going on).

The garage was very busy so the cashier opened up the other till and carried on with the other customers, while trying to phone a manager to find out what to do and how to reset the till. He couldn't get hold of anyone but after about 15 minutes of standing there like a lemon he gave me the nod to move my car off the pumps as other customers were complaining. I don't think he expected me to come back, but I did and stood there for another 5 minutes while he continued serving other customers and trying unsucessfully to get hold of a manager.

I finally got fed up and told him I needed to get on, at which point he told me I didn't need to pay anything (he said it was his managers problem for not answering the phone) and was free to go. Initially I did, but after getting in the car and thinking about it further I went back inside and insisted that I wanted to leave my name and phone number. I had visions of his manager taking a different view to him and reporting me to the police for driving off without paying. He then decided to try transferring the payment to the other till which seemed to work ok, although I realised afterwards he only charged me for the fuel and not the odd items I picked up in the shop.

So what would you have done? I could in theory have left with £50 of free fuel, but went out of my way to actually pay. In theory the CCTV would have backed up my story in the event of any repercussions but I just didn't want the hassle. I'm also now wondering what to do about the 3 quids worth of bits I didn't actually pay for. I'm happy to go back and try to pay, but I've never seen a manager actually at the garage and the thought of trying to explain the whole story to a different cashier doesn't appeal. At the moment I'm minded just to treat it as compensation for 20 minutes of my time and forget about it. Is this wise though?

[davepoth]

I'd not worry. You paid £50, so there is no way they could even suggest that you were trying to not pay.

[Leicesterdave]

Don't worry- I wish people in this world were as honest as you!

[XitUp]

I would have taken it.

[Tonberry]

I would have told him to fk off while doing a burnout off the forecourt in true PH fashion.

On a more serious note, once being told I didn't have to pay I would have carried on about my business knowing I had got one up on Uncle Sam...or something.

[Tom H]

I think you have done the right thing.

Slightly off on a tangent but I once went into a well known supermarket (I think Jamie Oliver shops there) and decided that as a packet of scotch eggs were reduced to 1/3 of the price and thought would treat myself and housemates (I was a student at the time) so purchased two packs. Unknown to me they were also on buy one get one free and when I got home I looked at the receipt and they ended up paying me to walk out the shop with their food!!

And to this day I still smile when buying them... oh nostalgia what a lovely thing.

[smash_bannana]

This happened to me with about £15 worth of petrol where the entire till system broke down, there was me and around 2 others, the cashier told us we can leave without payment.

I never returned to pay.....

[rpguk]

I wouldn't worry about it at all. You gave up 20 minutes of your time which is surely worth £3 - that should deal with any morals. And they won't bother tracking you down over the other goods so I'd be very surprised if you had any legal issues either.

[inlovewithRWD]

This happened to my dad one at a motorway services. He had just finished filling his Sprinter from empty when due to a powercut or something the pumps all reset themselves. It caused chaos so they just let people go to clear the backlog.

TBH it's not as if they're going to miss it when they're earning billions a year...

[mrmr96]

rpguk said:

I wouldn't worry about it at all. You gave up 20 minutes of your time which is surely worth £3 - that should deal with any morals.

Agreed. I'm sure I'm not the most expensive person on PH, but as an accountant if I were charging my time to a client the 20min would be worth exactly £53. (I'm £160/hr so coincidently the same as your wait and price!)