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Unfair ASDA PETROL drive away charge from VARS - cashier error and Asda refuse to help
Comments
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The cashier doesn't need to keep track of anyone, all they need to do is ask: "Any fuel?".
It's not difficult. It wouldn't take very long. Cashiers in other shops and petrol stations seem to manage similar questions without difficulty.
The customer will then either say "No" or "Yes, pump 3". So that shouldn't be too much of a challenge for them either.
Nobody gets offended. Nobody assumes the other party knows something they don't. Nobody innocently drives off without paying for fuel. Problem solved.
Why should the cashier take responsibility for this rather than the customer? Because it's their job, that's why.
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Yes, ideally the cashier should have asked. That would have been a useful failsafe in cases where the customer forgets to mention it. But I really don’t like blaming a cashier for the customer not paying for the fuel they put in the car. That’s shifting the blame and it isn’t on imo.
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Does any of it really matter?
The question was can they charge OP extra and that was answered on pages 1&2.
In the game of chess you can never let your adversary see your pieces3 -
Suppose the customer does say "Pump x", and the cashier isn't paying attention and so the card machine just charges the price of the other goods which the customer pays. Is any further payment for the petrol due at this point, never mind the fees?
Under my (admittedly inexpert) understanding of contract law, it would seem like saying "Pump x" and putting the other goods on the counter would be an invitation to treat, the price displayed on the machine is an offer and the customer paying is acceptance of the offer, forming a contract.
What have I got wrong there?
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@crispy_duck, I think you have forgotten that at the point of your 'invitation to treat' the consumer has already filled his tank with the seller's fuel!
The offer: The petrol pump itself is the "offer" made by the petrol station. The price and terms, 'the invitation to treat' are displayed on the machine.
The Acceptance: You accept this offer the moment you lift the nozzle and begin dispensing fuel into your vehicle. Once the fuel enters the tank, a point of no return is reached, and the contract is formed.
Payment: Paying at the kiosk is merely the execution of your contractual obligation to pay for the fuel you have already purchased.
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In a prior life I was finance manager for a very high traffic filling station, and drive offs were most definitely a criminal matter. They were usually reported to the police. I concede that the law may well have changed in the following years, and definitely the inclination of the police to pursue such matters has subsided.
Each incident was judged on its merits, for obvious reasons, someone brimming their tank is much more likely to be seen as a deliberate drive off, as is someone who doesn't enter the retail shop and literally drives off. We wouldn't ordinarily pursue those that looked like a genuine error on the part of the consumer, but all drive offs were recorded.
The uniform is a complete red herring, in general thieves come in all shapes, sizes, suits and indeed, uniforms. Sometimes fake uniforms/badges obviously, for the career criminal.
I don't feel that the OP did this with intention, but I do feel in a moment of madness, they took the opportunity. It is interesting that they recall the incident very well, and insist that the cashier was 'distracted'. And also write that 'They claim that I drove away without paying for my petrol', when that claim doesn't appear to be disputed by the OP. It's not really a claim is it, that's what happened, what is disputed on the part of the OP is whether that was intentional. It also appears that the offer to pay has only arisen subsequent to the charge from VARS landing.
It is even plausible that they never tell the cashier that they purchased fuel, and which pump. And that they wait to be asked, and on this occasion, weren't asked. It is not plausible in my view that they were completely unaware that they had not been correctly billed for the fuel until the VARS charge landed.
I was involved in the game, either before VARS was a thing, or my employer never used it at the time. One thing I can say is that each drive off was investigated, and the cashier will likely have had to explain how the drive off occurred. This is not something that they wanted to go through.
The above is all my own opinion, interpreted from the disclosure and my experience, and could easily be incorrect.
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They don't do that because they would lose a lot of impulse shop sales. They've calculated that they gain more from those than they do from lost revenue from drive-offs.
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What I see in the US is that everyone (except me) pulls up, heads straight to the store for a grocery bag full of snacks and drinks, pumps gas and drives off.
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Whoops my mistake. It was aimed the OP who I mistakenly believed hadn't asked for a receipt
However… if the OP got a receipt it sort of raises the question of why didn't they check it?
If you've just pumped £40 of petrol into your car and picked up a packet of crisps and a bottle of coke costing £4.50, wouldn't you alert the person on the till to a problem if your receipt only showed £4.50?
While a receipt can come in handy down the line to prove you bought something in the past, it also acts as current proof that you;ve paid for whatever you've bought before leaving.
I get receipts for virtualy everything and i also always check them before leaving. (This might be why i have little sympathy for the OP whom I feel is author of their own misfortune)
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So you think people don't get receipts because they are wary of hormone disruptors?
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