A couple of years er so ago a young man that was working as a gas jockey in British Columbia was dragged to his death when he chose to chase after a thief that was exiting the gas station he worked at without paying for a little over $12.00 worth of gas...a "gas n dash." A horrible incident, but really....why would anyone chase after a vehicle for $12.00? Especially as it's against the law in this country to take till shortages from one's paycheck?
Wouldn't you think that he should have written down the license number and make and model of the vehicle and called the police instead? Might have saved his life....
As a result of lobbying by his parents, the province of BC has passed a provincial law (Grant's Law) that states that all customers purchasing gas or petrol products in the province must pre-pay or they can not have the product....it went into effect Feb 1.
sounds simple enough?
Tonight I stopped at my local Co-op gas station to get gas….
In order to purchase gas with your debit card you must hand your debit card to a gas station employee who puts it in his wallet. If he is pumping the gas for you - you have to go inside while you wait for him to finish...but he's got your card. So anything you want to purchase as well as the gas has to wait....
After waiting for 10 er so minutes for the seemingly 7 year old kid to pump the gas, he comes back in and wanders into the back room...so I wait a minute er two more and the kid comes out from the back wearing his street clothes with his ball cap on and his back pack on carrying his skate board....
"uhhhhhm hello?"
he says "ya?"
"can I have my debit card?"
"holy crap! I forgot" he says.....
so we go over to the cash and he hands my card to a seemingly 9 year old wearing an assistant manager nametag and proceeds to tell him all about how much gas, which pump, how he almost headed home with my card...etc
I figure he's accountable...he's admitted to his mistake so he's offa the hook...
I look at the 9 yr old and I says to him..."betcha this is a pain in the ass"
he replies.."you have noooooo idea"
I said..."so all the newspapers are talking about how much the gas stations and patrons love it"
he says..."they'll be talking outta the other side of their mouths once everyone buys fast pay pumps and stops going to their station"
"Oh" says I, "will you guys be getting fast pay?"
to which he replies...."well ya...but it will take longer and cost way more than the already thru the roof cost cos we have to have special pumps so our co-operative members can enter their membership numbers...."
“how much is way more?” I ask
“500K to do all our pumps” he says “and now we have to have 2 people on all the time too so wages are gonna cost the company more”
in the end it took me a full 25 minutes to get my gas, pay for it and get back to my car....
I get the the parents of the young man that was killed in 2005 are devastated by his loss. But I can't help but wonder why I am being inconvenienced because they didn't teach that young man that his life was worth more than $12.00.
Friday, February 08, 2008
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4 comments:
and so - I am all for this thing if it stops gas and dash BUT they wanted me to leave my credit card in the station while I pumped my gas - nope I said because my bank - the Royal - has told Bry and I to NEVER EVER LET OUR CARDS OUT OF OUR SIGHT!! Why? because all over the US and Canada 'they' (the bad guys) now have these handy dandy and very small card readers that, in one second or less, can take all your info - send it to some far away place where your card will be duplicated and all of a sudden your visa balance is through the roof - so I told them they needed to get another method!!! and the fella at the cashier said they had had tons of complaints so far. I think I'll take cash to the gas station from now on - plan ahead - go to my bank - get $60 and go get gas - easy peezy methinks - I hate letting go of my cards - debit or credit especially after the warnings from th ebank. Oh yeah and here is another one - the Royal has these special chips on their cards and stores need special machines ot read them so now - it turns out - all banks in Canada will be getting these special chips so all retailers will now have to have these special readers - all becaseu of all the fraud - but I ask - how does this chip show them it's me?? Anyone could still be using my card - Is there a pic of me there - nope - so what difference does it make? SHEESH!!
We-ell, I usually go to a pay pump anyhow so I'm already pre-paying at Xtra foods...gets me 5cents off a litre to use in the grocery store and with my commute it doesn't take long to add up.
I've pre-paid at the Shell station too and had to go back in for a refund when my tank wouldn't take what I had paid for, a time consuming inconvenience so I try to stick to pay pumps.
What bothers me is the line of thinking that we're ALL thieves based on the actions of a very few so now we pre-pay and it won't be long before this practice spreads.
What they should have done is require ALL stations to have pay at the pump capabilities. Including debit and loyalty cards (Co-op) No problem then, except with cash. I haven't used cash to buy gas in 35 years.
The pre-pay thing has been going on down in the states for years - it was a major pita when i came up against it on the LCR in 05 - took some getting used to.
We're not being inconvenienced as a result of the parent's actions so much as by the actions of all the arseholes that are gas'n dashing now that prices are so high. And you'd be surprised at how often it has been occurring - it's not just a few and it's not just kids with no money - women with kids in the car have been doing it! Yup, daughter works at the co-op ;0) And she took MY debit card! LOL
We're not being inconvenienced by gas stations so much as by the perceived lack of accountability that a large portion of our population seems to abuse on a regular basis.
Ya pay higher credit fees to offset fraud costs, ya pay higher taxes to offset tax fraud, ya pay higher property taxes to higher more cops to police yer 'hood, yer inconvenienced at the pump to safeguard against F'ing thieves.
Just a reflection of the times. I'm starting to lean toward being more in favour of very liberal gun laws ;0/
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