Increasing problem of 'Fill and Drive Off'

flyingscotno1

The reason I was told for pay at pump not being common in the UK is because the petrol stations depend more on shop purchases for profit so want you to come in and be tempted by expensive water and chocolate.

DUTR

flyingscotno1 wrote: »

The reason I was told for pay at pump not being common in the UK is because the petrol stations depend more on shop purchases for profit so want you to come in and be tempted by expensive water and chocolate.

Yep, that is true, the forecourt does not make much profit on fuel sales.
Also a few years back, the conmen found a way to clone the cards from the PATP and a certain large chain was always the culprit stations that they targetted and PATP was withdrawn.

w50nky

I like pay at pump too, only issue for me is when the machine will not read points card and you have to enter the store anyway.
I really liked the all night pumps in the 80s that took £5, or was it £10 notes. They gave you exactly that amount without messing around, you just squeezed the handle without having to look.
Anyone else remember those?

atrixblue.-MFR-.

this was in use in my nearby private owned service station, pay first or no pump sign at the entry.

it worked for a few weeks then they realised they had lost revenue in the trial, many people just saw the sign and drove on looking at the cue aswell as you had to go to the window paypoint cues of 12-20 people on days many gave up hopped in the car and drove 200 yards to the next.

the system they had just went in the bin and they resorted to pay first after 9pm (wich is when the bilkings were most commonly happeneing for this service station) resulted in ques of three or four people and much more fluent revenue using the pay first system.

installation of CCTV they just marked the reg number and reported it to police HQ. when they spotted the car again, they refused to pump and called police who would pull it a few yards up the road.

theyve LET the garage to texaco now, who have approved anpr, they dont serve ones that come in with a no numberplate on, and ones that the ANPR cant read they tannoy them to pay first.

the same garage, blocked in a car that went to move off form the pump but the owners son was behind him and a van they were selling infront, he pump from the middle pump went to turn out and move off when the van driver notice and pulled out on him, he called the "sons" who blocked in from rear, the billker claimed he was a doctor who just had an emergency call and had to shoot off will pay them later wearing shorts a tshirt covered in paint! thet tapped off the pump and drained his tank in the workshop down the road lol!.

motorguy

My local filling station is pre-pay, as there have been so many drive offs.

You get used to it.

facade

Does the anpr system mean if someone steals your numberplate and uses it for bilking, then your plate is forever blacklisted?
So you could even buy a car that has been used for biking and never get any more petrol.

photome

Ultrasonic wrote: »

Morrisons pay at pump works like Tesco system described above - put card in at start, type in PIN, get payment up to £100 authorised, then deliver fuel and get charged for what you take. This is a faster system for me than queuing in the kiosk so I always use these pumps, unless I need to go into the kiosk to collect a Morrisons Miles voucher.

I can't see any downsides to this from a customer point of view. I can see from the garage's point of view it removes the chance of me going in to pay and then being overcome by an urge to purchase overpriced snacks to boost their profit margins, but as this never happens they aren't really missing out . The only thing that annoys me is when the automated pump runs out of paper to print receipts, and I'm then forced to queue up to get one. But at that point I'm no worse off than I would be with the old system.

I'm confused by the system discussed above that involves queuing twice? I've never come across anything like that.

It is the system in the USA but you only need to queue twice if you over pay the first time, so as long as you know how much you can get in the tank, there is only a need to queue once

mike_the_bike_2

My local supermarket Manager (one of the big four) told me that by choice he would ask cars fitted with foreign number plates to pay up front before filling.

At his petrol station they are getting lots of drive offs.. The problem being with cars having foreign plates the Police are simply not interested in following it up.. The other issue apparently is that it is well known that the police will not follow it up!

Peter999_2

w50nky wrote: »

I like pay at pump too, only issue for me is when the machine will not read points card and you have to enter the store anyway.
I really liked the all night pumps in the 80s that took £5, or was it £10 notes. They gave you exactly that amount without messing around, you just squeezed the handle without having to look.
Anyone else remember those?

I don't remember them. However at our Tesco petrol station there are now buttons that you can use to specify how much you want to put in your car.

You set it to say £20, squeeze the handle and it automatically stops at £20.

Ultrasonic

mike_the_bike wrote: »

My local supermarket Manager (one of the big four) told me that by choice he would ask cars fitted with foreign number plates to pay up front before filling.

Is that legal?