I read in the local rag a letter from a person who was accused of driving away from a service station without paying for petrol. He claims he filled up, walked into the shop, and payed, this being the textbook self-service model.
He gave the cashier the EUR 20 note, and got correct change of EUR 2.xx, and drove away. Later that day the Gardai called to his house. They had been talking to the service station manager who had accused the driver of not paying and had provided a CCTV still image of the cars number plate at it was leaving the forecourt.
Now, lets assume the driver is honest and his story is true, lets examine the situation… The cashier didn’t give the driver a receipt, and this is definately the norm in Ireland in service stations. Further, because the didn’t pay by credit card he had no proof of payment documentation to show the Gardai.
It is interesting that the service station manager only gave the Gardai a still image, it would heva been much more interesting to see the realtime video which would show the driver entering the shop and interacting with the cashier.
The drivers letter didn’t address this issue, rather he took the usual, and understandable, line about the Gardai chasing innocent people and not catching murderers etc.
In conclusion how can you avoid this situation?
- Ask for a receipt? (but no one else does so the till mighn’t have paper, if you go to a largely diesel station then you’ll have no problem getting a receipt as its assumed you’ll need it for you expense account)
- Pay by cheque? (nice idea, but hardly any station accepts cheques these days, even with a cheque guarantee card which covers up to EUR 130)
- Get a fuel card? (nice idea, but unless you are a sales rep its too much effort)
- Pay by coin? (possible, but keep under 50 to comply with the Staturoty Instrument, you could pay in EUR 1/2 and use the personal remberance angle, but too much effort)
- Pay by credit card?, then you’ll get a receipt (independent merchants have trouble absorbing the credit card fees and so empirically try to discourage credit card use by enabling slow universal authorisationsm, or maybe they are in a “bad” area)
- Pay by debit card?, like Laser or Maestro, then you’ll get a receipt (yes this is the best option, merchants aren’t charged a percentage fee on transactions just a fixed fee of about 25c, so this is their favourite payment form, indeed better then cash as the banks charge about 0.5 percent on notes lodged, and 2 percent on coins lodged!, unfortunately the issuing of a debit card is a considered a lending decision by the banks so not everyone can get one, also their is government stamp duty of EUR 20 per annum)
American readers might be asking themselves “Why can’t I pay at the pump with my AMEX?”. Well things are different here, credit card readers aren’t in the pumps. American readers might now be asking themselves “So then surely you pay before you pump”. Well again things are different here you pay afterwards.
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