Shell Garage "held me hostage"

AliceBanned

I have just waited 40 minutes for the privilege of paying for petrol at a Shell petrol station.:mad: . The Chip n Pin card was not working, the operator called his manager who arrived 25 minutes later (he told me it would be 5 mins) and I got no apology from the manager. Obviously I told the manager I was owed an apology. The manager told the previous customer she could have a bar of chocolate as compensation, and seemed to think the whole thing was a joke. I have written to Shell to inform them that customers are being treated in this way; sure the machine may have gone down, but they had no contingency at all, and more to the point no customer service. they also told us we had to wait until it was sorted, which I am not sure is actually legal! Effectively we were held hostage. Does anyone know?!

dmg24

How were you held hostage - did they physically restrain you/ lock the doors? Were handcuffs used? Chains?

AliceBanned

dmg24 wrote: »

How were you held hostage - did they physically restrain you/ lock the doors? Were handcuffs used? Chains?

No they wouldn't dare! But I was told I couldn't leave, and I know that it is illegal to leave a station forecourt with petrol you haven't paid for. Didn't want to risk getting arrested! The staff seemed to offer no immediate solution, although the lady in front of me asked if she could just leave her address and arrange payment later; he said no!

pendulum

After 10-15 minutes I'd have insisted on leaving my details and going. If the attendant says no then he says no, but I'm going anyway. I'd say something like "I will be back later to pay", or if the station is not local to me, I'd make sure I got the address first and then agree to send a cheque.

cardinalbiggles

AliceBanned wrote: »

But I was told I couldn't leave, and I know that it is illegal to leave a station forecourt with petrol you haven't paid for. Didn't want to risk getting arrested!

Dont think thats quite true as far as I am aware. It's not a criminal offence, nor a matter that the police will get involved with if you leave the forecourt without paying if you have a) tried to pay or b) forgot your wallet went in and apologised and said you would be back. You dont have to give them any details either.

It is however theft if you leave without paying on purpose.

The only criminal element is theft and thats clearly not what you wanted to do.

montyrebel

wow,take a chill pill

hieveryone

My friend works in a retail store and she told me that if their tills or card machine goes down they take manual payments, and if someone is paying by card they write down all their details on a piece of paper and put it through manually later.

In that situation I would probably rather wait than let someone write down all my details on some loose piece of paper.. to go straight in someones pocket later :eek::eek:

As someone else said, it's not illegal to leave without paying if it's a genuine mistake or error by the garage, so you will know for next time if anything like that happens.

Bowling_4_Gold

Just out of interest, where did 40 Minutes come from? You said you waited 25 mins for the manager, and surely it doesn't take you 15 mins to fill up...??

alwaysonthego_2

I used to work in a petrol station and if someone forgot their wallet we would take their reg plate and if they did not pay within a certain time limit we would contact the police.

AliceBanned

Bowling_4_Gold wrote: »

Just out of interest, where did 40 Minutes come from? You said you waited 25 mins for the manager, and surely it doesn't take you 15 mins to fill up...??

The manager decided to train the employee on using the manual card machine, rather than springing into action and serving us himself. When I left the station it was 7.39 so I exaggerate by one minute.

AliceBanned

montyrebel wrote: »

wow,take a chill pill

I don't need drugs, but thanks for your constructive comments.:rotfl: