You probably wouldn’t try to leave a retail store without a receipt, but you might not think about it when you’re at the gas pump—after all, it’s not like you’re going to bring the gas back for a refund. But a reader points out that you should always have your proof of purchase just in case you end up in an awkward situation:
I pulled out of the lot, turned left, and I wasn’t more than 200 yards away when a cop comes up behind me, lights flashing. I knew I couldn’t have been speeding so I was genuinely confused. He said the woman at the United Dairy Farmers said I drove off without paying for gas.
Here’s Chris’ full story:
I had an interesting experience on Friday and a life lesson I think is worth passing onto other readers. On Friday I stopped at a United Dairy Farmers (local Cincinnati convenience store/ice cream parlor) to fill up while gas is relatively cheap. I pulled up to the pump, swiped my card, filled up, and paused before printing the receipt. Usually those things just end up wadding up in my pocket or under the seats of the car, but what the hell, I hit yes anyway. I then went inside to get a soft drink.
“Anything else?” the cashier asked. I said no, paid in change, and went back to my car. I pulled out of the lot, turned left, and I wasn’t more than 200 yards away when a cop comes up behind me, lights flashing. I knew I couldn’t have been speeding so I was genuinely confused. He said the woman at the United Dairy Farmers said I drove off without paying for gas. I said that was incorrect, and he said “She said it was a silver car, and she pointed at yours.” I do drive a silver car, but I had paid for gas, and wait! I told the officer I had my receipt, and he wrote down the details: Amount, pump number, last 4 of my credit card, and the time. I also pulled out the credit card I paid with and my license, just to verify everything was on the up and up. He was cool about it, apologized, and I was on my way.
Lesson here is to always print that receipt out. I rarely check it against my statements now that I don’t fill up as often. But without that 3×1 strip of paper I would have had a totally different story to tell. Needless to say I won’t be taking my business to United Dairy Farmers anymore – being falsely accused of theft is a dealbreaker.
(Photo: Getty)
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Why didn’t the cashier just charge her for the gas when she went in for the soft drink? I’m also wondering if the commenter peeled out of the gas station yelling, “PEACE OUT SUCCKKAASS!!!” That’s what probably caused the confusion.
She should have simply showed her recei…oh wait, she did, and it fixed the problem.
I always print my receipts so I can remember to enter them into the ledger. Otherwise, I always will forget the amount, and balancing will become a nightmare. Good idea, though. Definitely saved the day, it seems.
I’m surprised no one has made a joke about refusing to show the cop your receipt out of sheer principle, claiming he’s nothing more than a glorified door greeter!
@TomCruisesTesticles: If I want something I’ll go in while my fuel pumps
That is pretty dumb. First, you run the risk of someone taking your unattended nozzle out and stealing your gas. Second you create a public safety risk by not being present in case something goes wrong and/or needs attention. Third, In most places it is against the law to pump gas unattended.
First, I’ve read that the majority of “newer” cars on the road these days are silver (the nation’s most popular color choice for cars). So pointing out a silver car is pretty ridiculous.
Second, at the gas station in my town, while chatting with the clerk, she said that the cameras in the store are good enough to read a credit card in her hand (why?), but the ones outside are not good enough to read a plate. Also, they allow gas to be pumped with no pre-payment. Also, if there are three drive-offs the clerk gets fucking fired.
I happen to work in a field where I implement outdoor IP cameras, license plate OCR, and loop sensors. I feel like it would be pretty simple to write some software where if a loop gets unlatched with no payment detected, it would signal a camera for that lane that would grab the license and picture of the car, OCR that bastard, and send it directly to 5-0.
@timmus: I’m not sure how you could mix them up if that’s the scenario – someone does a gas and dash, and then 10 minutes later there’s another car that’s kinda similar? I don’t buy it.
@snowburnt: It’s not nitpicking, it’s a kinda important point. Does this store have a history of being gas and dashed? Is this customer someone who they’ve had an issue with in the past (I am not trying to blame the OP, just putting out reasons why a cop could be there so quick)? There are reasons it could have happened beyond those stated, and possibly those reasons shed more light on the story.
@theninjasquad: Maybe he decided he wanted something after he paid? It’s still quicker to pay for the gas at the pump then have the cashier look up the pump and do the transaction, plus if there was a line, eh has the option of skipping out his little item – not so much if he didn’t already pay the gas.
Also, am I missing something? Why is it assumed the OP is female? I thought the picture was just a picture that got stuck with the article, which happens sometimes on here. I mean, it’s from Getty which is a stock image site…
@Tmoney02: Point three-not where I come from. And I usually don’t drive alone. Either way, nothing wrong with buying a soda but paying at the pump
@verucalise: You’d think Stewarts would want you inside to be tempted by their awesome ice cream.
@TomCruisesTesticles: And even if it seems idiotic, at the very, very, very least, it is not reasonable suspicion of theft because (among other reasons) it is so common
And this is why I’m glad I can’t have this problem in Jersey.
@craiggers: Printing the receipt does not “close out the transaction.”
@Rectilinear Propagation: Many pumps now ask about the receipt before you pump gas. If you don’t want a receipt, how on earth would the pump know to “close out the transaction”?
Returning the nozzle to the pump “closes out” the transaction.
Printing the receipt happens AFTER the transaction is “closed.”
Also as far as having a receipt to prove you bought gas in case of contamination…my CC statement shows when, where, and how much. I would imagine this is acceptable as evidence in most legal proceedings.
Even with a receipt…how can you prove you pumped the gas into a specific vehicle? Maybe you got gas for your friend?
The officer apologized, and most cashiers would as well.
Maybe there were 2 silver cars and the cop made the mistake!
@kchenx: @kchenx: The cashier didn’t charge her for gas when she went in for the soft drink because she didn’t tell the cashier she needed gas BECAUSE she used her credit card AT THE PUMP to pay for gas. Get it? The confusion is that the cashier was too dense at that time to understand that customers can pay at the pump with a credit card while also going into the store to buy with cold hard cash.
@Troy F.: Because people like me would just run them over.
“Things like this just happen”, alright, but these are the things that make us change our habits.
The least that they should have done was to comp her gas and apologize. The most I would expect would be a $50 gift card on top of that.
Being accused of a crime when you are innocent is one of the hardest, most humiliating things that can happen (this has happened to me and I felt HELPLESS, really, really helpless). In these situations YOU are wrong and the MERCHANT/COP is right. This is true right up to the point where you over-prove your case (simply proving something is not enough when you have two people who both think that your are lying).
I don’t have a (huge) problem with someone making a mistake, but they have to be held responsible for their actions (just as the poster would have been if she had indeed stolen that gas) and make things right when they are wrong.
I always get a receipt. Years ago, I pulled into a station to fill up but my gas cap was frozen and would not come off. I left to get my cap unfrozen, while I was driving, someone passed me, ran me off the road, got out of his car and started screaming that I had stolen gas. It was the boyfriend of the cashier at the store. I told him to call the police and we would settle it.
Police came, got my gas cap off, verified that I was bone empty, and asked if I wanted to press charges against the guy that ran me off the road (No, I didn’t).
@timmus:
Cops usually hang out at these places for the free coffee. The cops in our city do it every day. He was probably there and the casheir just told him
This whole ‘pre-pay’ thing always kind of pissed me off anyway. The first time it happened to me, I picked up the pump and a voice comes over the speaker informing me that all pumps were pre-pay. I was irritated but I went in anyway and, since all I has was a fifty, I handed that to the clerk and asked for a receipt (knowing I wouldn’t need $50 worth of gas). She said they “weren’t set up for that” and I told her I didn’t really give a rat’s ass what they were “set up for”. If she didn’t trust me with their gasoline, I didn’t trust her with my fifty. She called the manager and I repeated the same thing to him and made him give me a hand-written receipt with his signature on it. Was I being a dick-head? Probably, but it’s a valid point. How did I know I they wouldn’t claim it was a twenty when I went back in to get my change.
You showed your receipt? But that’s what the Nazis and al-Qaida would want you to do!
I had something similar happen to me once, though minus the actual police. I’d pulled into a Shell station to fill up and as I was leaving again, the clerk came running madly towards me gesturing at me to stop and then said I hadn’t paid.
Since I have a fast pass for Shell, and had a receipt, I was pretty sure I’d paid, so I showed it to him and drove off. I didn’t realize I was supposed to be as traumatized as some of these commenters suggest I should have been.
Though I was mildly annoyed that the guy was stupid enough to think that my Honda Civic had been the one to not pay for $87 in gas (in the era of much lower gas prices) and not, say, the giant frigging truck that was still sitting at the pumps next to me.
Hooray for Oregon, where you aren’t allowed to pump your own gas! Screw receipts, man.
Had something like this happen to my brother. He didn’t have a receipt but his car had a 35L tank and he was accused of stealing over 80L of gas. The attendant stopped him and called the police, police checked his trunk for gas cans, he had none and sent him on his way.
I don’t get gas a UDF becuase one of their crappy stations decided that it was easier to ignore the water in their gas instead of shutting down and fixing it.
But I still go back for Milkshakes
@GMFish: I also drove off once without paying, years ago. I only got to the corner before I realized my mistake and went back and paid. The evil I that I got from the employees was pretty awful, but hey–I hadn’t paid, so I understood it.
@LionelEHutz: Oh I got it the first time. My point was that if the cashier thought the customer hadn’t paid at the pump, then why not just charge for the gas when he/she got the soda, or at least ask if the gas was paid for already?
Though in my opinion this wasn’t too big a deal. The cop was nice about it and the poster seemed not to mind the inconvenience. You never know, maybe the gas station has had a lot of gas thefts lately and/or it was that cashier’s first day.
I only take reciepts when I know I’ll likely return something or I want someone to comp me (business expenses, buying something for my mom to save her a trip). I really hate having a receipt just to prove I didn’t shoplift. Granted, I live in NJ, where I at least have the word of an employee who personally pumped my gas to prove that I paid.
I hope the cop only wrote the last four digits of the card and not the whole thing. The rapid dispatch of a cop seems odd to me too.
@ohiomensch: How come you didn’t press charges? A cousin of mine was in a similar situation-assaulted on suspicion of shoplifting. Turned out to be a misunderstanding, but he pressed charges anyway. Hell, even if he had been shoplifting he could have pressed charges. Sometimes, people need to learn the hard way what acceptable behavior is.
There are still gas stations where you DON’T have to prepay???
@TomCruisesTesticles: I.e., perceived injustice does not justify taking the law into your own hands. If someone is not immediately threatened or protecting someone from harm, where do they get off hitting someone? They get off at county, if it happens to me
This happened to my family years ago, when gas was cheap. My dad was out running errands, filled up the car, and then came home. Twenty minutes later the cops show up at our house, blue lights flashing in our driveway. My dad had paid cash, and had no receipt. They ended up having to go through the security tapes to figure out who actually stole the gas. The gas station apologized, and we still go there when they have good prices.
UDF usually had the cheapest prices around, and I don’t know why you’d stop patronizing them for such a small incident.
I don’t print out my receipts because they are totally unnecessary. I fill up my tank so seldom that the shock of the price is enough to allow me to remember it until the next time I check my online statement.
Whether at the gas pump or at the bank, when it asks if I want a receipt, I always answer “Yes.” But what I’m thinking when I push the button is, “Yes – I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”
Subby here, and some clarifications on the comments above:
It turns out the cop had been at the store parked in the front of the building, but I hadn’t seen him because all the spots were full and he was on the end. That’s also the reason why I didn’t pull away from the pumps just to walk in and walk out.
I drive a Scion tC, which is not exactly common, and the parlor patrol told the officer the pump and identified my car, I assume while I was at the traffic light.
I don’t know why she thought I stole the gas, maybe because I paid for a drink with coins instead of a credit card but I am 99% sure they have a computerized system that displays incomplete transactions. She was standing there when the cashier asked if that was all, so if she suspected I was not going to pay, she could have stopped me right then.
Basically, I’m glad that I had the receipt on me, because otherwise I’d have spent Friday evening at that store or explaining my story on a police report while the officer verified my story with Mastercard. All because the woman in the store was never trained properly.
Oh, also…
I’m a dude. [checks] Yeah, a dude.
“Mix-ups like that happen sometimes??” You’re kidding, right? Accused of theft, pulled over by the cops, have to sit there while people drive by and watch you be embarressed and interogated by the cops? I would have driven back to the station, showed the receipt to the employee, and gotten the owners contact information. That employee could have seen on her register that the gas was paid for with a card, if she had opened her eyes and looked- it shows up immediately.@TalKeaton:
Doesn’t the US have the same security as the UK at petrol/gas stations where automatic numberplate recognition is in use for cars that don’t pay after filling up? Wouldn’t you be on CCTV paying or not paying anyway? Why would a gas station bother sending the cops after you?
@DrGirlfriend: screw potentially having to tip the attendant (see also: Jersey). Gas is spendy enough as it is.
@icy_one: Called it!
Half the time I get gas the receipt printer is out of paper. How is that supposed to help me?
That’s strange of the station, I was under the impression that, due to so many fill-and-runs, paying in advance at the pump with your credit card was required. I know mix-ups can happen, but I think Chris has every reason to want to avoid this particular station in the future…being called a thief seems like a good enough reason for me.
@InfiniTrent: Your ignoring the key difference.
The employee was in a position to know that no crime was committed, and had access to information that would tell if one knew if a crime was committed or not.
*The employee was a gas station attendant. Their job is to know who paid or not.*
The employee either knew the person didn’t steal, and decided to just have fun and call the police (most likely), or declined to do their job and called the police (which is still reckless).
Calling the police without legitimate cause for concern is a crime. It’s a false report. The person who called clearly should have been in the know.
This is clearly a false report because there was no legitimate cause for concern. The clerk failed at their job and made a false report. In a store, security looks at the security tape before calling police because of this.
Ignorance is *not* an excuse to be above the law. Ignorance is why the law needs to exists.
It distracts law enforcement from doing their job and wastes precious resources.
The employee failed… stop making excuses.
I’m not sure I get the “humiliation” aspect of being pulled over. I’ve been pulled over plenty of times. A quick poll of my coworkers shows that all have been pulled over at least once – two for crimes not committed. None of us needed therapy afterwards.
Sometimes, further investigation is needed. The police need to stop you in order to do so. As long as they are reasonable and respectful, I don’t understand what the big deal is about answering some questions.
Geez, Ohiomensch, had someone run me off the road, I’d certainly push to have them prosecuted…
Huh.
The receipt printers at the pump don’t work at any of the gas stations I frequent.
@palookapalooza:
I always pump to the nearest $.08 ($30.08, $40.08) so I can just scan gas transactions on my bill and know they’re ok.
@TomCruisesTesticles:
I guess I was young and dumb. Just so glad that he wasn’t some random maniac out to really hurt me. He meant well, really just looking out for his girlfriend, who was someone I went to school with, so I let it go.
@stinerman: If you’re at a Hess station in New England, getting a receipt out of the pump is cause for celebration. Their printers are notorious for being out of supplies or never working. Gas is the cheapest around though. They save all that money on printer supplies I guess.
Wait, where can you find a pump that doesn’t require you to prepay these days?
Yes!
This has happened to me.
That is how i learned to get a receipt everytime I pump gas.
I lived on the ‘hillbilly’ island of Kauai in the 50th state of Hawaii back
in 1997.
I drove off from a Chevron station in the city of Lihue.
About 10 minutes later, a blue & white squad car flashed lights and sirens
and pulled me over.
The officer told me to either go back and pay (I had already paid with my
credit card inserted into the slot on the pump) or get arrested by him.
I told him that I paid.
It turned out that the pump was faulty, and so the employees was in the
habit of resetting and overriding the ‘error’ and allowing customers to pump
gas even tho their CC did not go thru the transaction.
How would I know that? Especially when the attendant is too lazy to come out
to tell me that, and went ahead and reset it, making me assume that I am
able to pump gas because my pump accepted my card.
So after filling my tank, I drove off, not knowing that I still needed to go
into the ‘convenience store’ to pay for my ‘override’ gas fill.
And then the clerk panicked as they saw me drive off, so what do they do?
Call 911 of course! They don’t want the ‘shortage’ to come out of their
paycheck! Screwed up!
I can tell you a lot of other ‘hillbilly’ stories about living on a remote
island, such as Kauai, but I’ll save it for when you actually experience it,
and we can share! Aloha!
@digitalgimpus: Uh…what?
Does it say in the article who, specifically called the cops? “The woman at…” doesn’t, per se, mean the cashier. It seems you’re jumping to a conclusion there. Regardless, just because she doesn’t fully investigate (during which time a potential thief is getting further and further away) doesn’t mean it’s filing a false report. What report got filed?