Is this a scam?

recovering_spendaholic

I bought petrol on my cc last night and used my pin. When I got to the car I noticed that the amount did not tally with the pump amount so I went back and the assistant said "oh, sorry the man before you bought sweets and I forgot to clear the till". He then gave me the £1.90 overcharge in cash. when I got home and put my glasses on and looked at the bill there was wrigleys chewing gum listed at £1.90. I hate using my pin in places as I am sure it is so easy to see what you are entering - do you think I should be worried or am I just neurotic?

HugoRune_2

Sounds like a con to me, especially if its privately owned. I presume the last transaction would have been cash not credit card, dont know how the till works but cant imagine it mixes cash & cc transactions..

Sooler

Report the garage to your cc company as any refund should have been done back to the card as mentioned, the garage is probably in breach of its agreement with the cc company.

Giving a cash refund is somewhat fraudulent as if you paid with a cash back cc the cc company have lost out as you'd get cash back on £1.90 which you didn't spend.

I would expect that the cc co.would take a close look at the sales transactions for that garage.

Silent_Bob_3

How much were you charged in total as the previous person could have put £10 of petrol in (or £60) unless you put exactly the same volume of the SAME petrol in then nothing should tally with what you were charged.

coolsteel

Sounds like to me the person has got a nice little scam going, the person before you paid cash, put his purchase on your card then pocket the cash he paid. If as you noticed no problem just give you back the cash. You need to report this maybe to the police for them to try to catch him, he must be making a nice tidy sum! All this is my theory anyway.
Coolsteel :cool:

hollydays

sounds a bit complicated though.most people of this type would just pocket the cash.

Anwen_2

Yeah, but then the till would be short, presume it's an employee rather than the person running the place. Or else, if it is the owner, they basically get paid twice.

stressedoutmumof1

I used to work on a site that had a petrol station and we had to sack 4 employees who had been "stealing" although nothing ever showed in their tills (shortages etc) this had been going on for 4 months, they had basically been swiping the card and taking the cash - so no-one was ever the wiser. However one chappy came in and he had had his card swiped 4 times in 1 day for diesel, petrol and LPG!!! Not very ligit.