72 "drive-offs" (people not paying for gas) in Greensboro NC, March 2005

http://vh10634.moc.gbahn.net/news/local/gso/gastheft_040805.htm

Gas thefts climb with higher cost of filling up

By Eric J.S. Townsend Staff Writer
News & Record, 4-8-05

Hope Brown looked up from her paperwork Sunday afternoon inside the office of the Wilco convenience mart near Guilford College in Greensboro. A cashier's cry had snapped the assistant manager's concentration. "That dude didn't pay for his gas!" the employee yelled as a white box truck started to pull away from the diesel pump.

Brown sprinted for the door. Her goal: catch a glimpse of the license plate -- and perhaps recoup $40 for the stolen diesel fuel. No such luck. "The guy sped off," Brown said two days later. "I thought he was going to kill himself in that truck."

Think it's easy dealing with today's gas prices? Try talking to station owners whose pocketbooks are taking an even bigger hit as a growing number of drivers make off without paying for fuel.

Greensboro police responded to 72 "drive-offs" in March. Although it's not a record number of gas thefts, month-by-month statistics do reflect recent price increases. And those are just the thefts that are reported to police.

:rofl:

Chickens come home to roost!

...and clerks would like that to be the case.

Like always, it's the little guy that suffers.

of course,we've also had the highest prices for YEARS!

I'm not sure if it's like that _everywhere_ around here, but most places for sure.

Actually around the City it's all full-serve, no self-serve at all.

I haven't been to a gas station in years that let you pump first and pay afterwards.

Most places in Hillsborough let you pump 'n pay. I only ever fill up at the Costco in Durham, and it's a moot point there.

That's the only place my SO and I will fill up the tanks! It runs about 10 cents cheaper per gallon than anywhere else in town.

:shrug:

Police do not investigate these crimes, except perhaps in small towns where the cops have little else to do.

If the attendant gets a full license plate number, vehicle description, and description of the driver (which is the purpose of the camera), the plate number may be flagged so that if that vehicle is stopped for some other reason, the driver will be questioned. But that in and of itself almost always leads nowhere. What the camera usually doesn't show is whether the driver paid for the gasoline. It simply shows a vehicle that someone says belongs to a person who didn't pay for gasoline.

The vehicle stops that result in the question usually takes place well after the incident, and the attendant on duty at the time, if he or she can even be found probably will have no specific memory of the incident because dozens of other drive-offs have taken place in the mean time. Further, it's fairly easy to create a reasonable doubt regarding the driver's guilt. Attendants sometimes pocket money and claim someone stole gas, or at other times, they simply get confused about who has and has not paid for gas and guess at the offender because if they don't file a police report, they end up being held responsible by the company.

They may just have to change their system.
Good old red-state, family values, bu$h lovin, bible thumpers doing the right thing, I see.

I haven't seen a pay afterwards in years. But I mostly go to the places with the credit card slots in them anyway.

there's hell to pay here, jail time, loss of license. I want the concession on locking gas caps.

and they have the lowest gas prices on the East Coast.

I don't think it's caused by drive-offs. I'm just sayin'...

Interesting. I suspect the city has pass some ordinance intended to cut down on the number of drive-off reports.

In OKC, when gas was still hovering below $1.40/gallon, one chain of stores typically reported a hundred or more drive-offs per day, an average of one drive-off per store in the metro per day. Some had more, some less, of course. I managed one store where we usually reported around 20 per month, and this was considered pretty good.

I left the business about a year ago, so I have no idea what it's like now. But, I imagine it has become a huge problem.

...I'm sure there was a degree of the "cops won't do anything so why bother" factor.

And in fairness to the cops, if these people are in and out before the station owners can get a license number, what COULD they do?

Not at all. As mentioned in a different note, just prosecuting these cases can be a nightmare, and that's assuming the police could actually catch anyone.

Businesses could cut this nonsense down to almost zero if they'd go to 24/7 pre-pay. The reason they don't is competition. People generally don't like to pre-pay, for whatever reason, and if two gas stations sit side-by-side, one with pre-pay and the other not, the one without it will get more business. Insurance and tax write-offs pay for the loss of the stolen gasoline, as long as a police report is filed, so there's no real incentive for the business owners to go to pre-pay unless states and communities enact laws essentially forcing them to do so.

I long supported our community doing just that, but the company for which I worked was dead-set against it due to the competition factor. It would have lost them their major draw of customers at busy intersections, and they simply didn't care about the overall detrimental effect of implicitly allowing this to continue. This was one, among many reasons I left the company.

People have always done this . But I don't condone it .