Drive Offs

I used to sell video security systems, amazing how after an incident, how poor the quality of video is. They skimped on the recommendation to change the tapes "frequently". Now a days, the use of hard drives should prevent poor quality images, that is if the cameras are good quality. You get what you pay for...............

He probably is unaware that it happened, as an ex truckie I know the last person to know is usually the driver ,thier sheer weight and grunt lulls you into thinking nothings amiss till you notice a dent that wasn't there before, or the handle of a pump LOL........

Agreed that often it is only after the fact that a business will start to question their choice of cheap crappy equipment... grainy video is worthless in court... the only reason half of them even put it in in the first place is to satisfy an insurance requirement.

Get done all the time.
(For attempted drive offs).
Have even had the cops called on me!

Try fueling up when you have diesel gas vehicle and have to shift vehicle from the diesel bowser to the LPG bowser to complete the fill!

The STOOPID damn console operators have never heard of a diesel/gas vehicle, that takes auto gas as well as diesel - so as soon as you hop in and start to move after filling the diesel tank they "assume" - your going to drive off, without paying and they pannic and push the button and phone the police.

I was still at the auto gas pump - when cops arrived looking for me - the console operator couldn't "see" his auto gas bowser from the console - so assumed I'd left without paying!

Explained to the cops I was still busy filling and how much the truck takes (250 of diesel & 146 liters of LPG) i.e at the time about $600 worth of fuel!

They went in and asked the console operator to confirm there was a drive off and theft - he "confirmned" it and gave them my vehicle plate details etc, then i walked in to pay for the diesel & gas!

He took the money and then went red and looked like a goose when I mentioned 2 bowser numbers - one of which was the supposed "drive off" diesel pump.

As i was leaving the cops were reaming him a new butthole for wasting police time & resources, making false reports etc and basically threateneing him with jail time for being a lazy good for nothing tool - and not CHECKING to see if indeed a drive off had occurred! BEFORE reporting it!.

I guess I have had similar happen maybe 3 or4 times in the 2 years since installing auto gas.

It's about the only downside to an otherwise good system - it tends to make you LOOK like a potential crim at the servo!

The servo drive off thing works 2 ways - they make as many stuff up's as people who steal fuel from them probably.

When your on the receiving end - it ceases being funny after a while!

Cheers.

Amazingly enough, when we were at Innamincka of all places they were complaining about drive offs happening regularly.

Seems there are mongrels in 4WDs also.

Maybe the driver was half asleep and didn't realize that he hadn't paid?

My wife gets them quite often $90K 4X4,rusty one's Truckers there good try explaining $1400 drive off, wife talks to the video machine tells of the no.plate colour & vehicle. The you get the smart one's with different stolen plates every time they come in.
How easy as some one stated below to go tell operator you have to move to get different fuel.
Bob.

Note to all

Secure your number plates by fitting one way screws or filling the screw holes with glue or silicon.

There is a huge growth in theft of number plates so the thieves can drive into servos and steal petrol and drive off. When the video is checked all they see is a stolen number plate and you have to explain to police what happened :-(

Better safe than sorry !

It also pays to keep the receipt for the fuel you get as one day I had the police knocking on my door saying I did a runner of $5 worth of fuel. They showed me a picture of the car which had the time on it, so i got out the receipt and showed them I had paid, which was a lot more than $5. Then I remembered and told them that a guy had pulled up next to me put some fuel in and saying he had trouble moved forward to the next pump so obviously did not pay for the first lot.
Chris

Speaking of such matters, does anyone know what happened to the poor bloke who left a servo and forgot to pay for his breakfast?

Poor bastard got accused of being akin to an Axe Murderer by some on this forum at the time. He's probably never been back after that, but I just wonder.

Jim.

Naths servo has pretty pathetic cameras too...and its not because they are skimpy on the money or anything like that. They are there as a deterant. PLUS, IF (big IF) they do catch the person that drove off, by the time they take them to court and get the money out of them they are out of pocket anyway so there is nopoint getting more out of pocket. (legal fees, court fees, paying the attendant to attend.....)

AND thats if the cops catch them. In the 5yrs I was working there, there was only 1 that was taken to court but he had taken his children when he had a avo against him and was on the run. And they (the cops) only forced 2 other people to pay theirs once they were caught. I gave them an absolute mouthful when they came in to pay - it was busy at the time and they left hanging their heads in shame!

and as for the diesel / lpg fill up....its not hard to get the attendants attention through the window and point to the lpg or something...they will figure it out....they arent stupid (most of the time!), its not usually neccessary to pay for diesel before getting the lpg but a little curtesy is nice.

Its sucks hey redbakk that people, even who are doing it tough, are getting away with it, especially when damage is done to the servo.....I guess Gilbarco have it cut out for them replacing that now! (it happened to our diesel pump yrs ago...!)

Laura

I was talking to the owners of the servo at Torrumbarry near Echuca on the Murray at Christmas time. They reckon they get at least half a dozen drive offs over the Christmas period but nearly always catch the crim because they have very good video surveillance.