if someone drives off without paying for petrol. Whose fault is it?

LegacyUser

Today i was on my lunch break and a person drove off without paying. it wasnt my fault and so while i was explaining this to the manager, another **** drove off without paying. and then later on it happened a third time!!

so i was required to pay some of the amount because those people drove off while i was on the till.

the shop was busy and there was no way i could have seen who the people were or anything

is this fair that the money has to come outa my pocket! when there was nothing i could have done to prevent it!

qwertz

Are there no cameras?

amen

What does your contact say about this? I'm sure this can't be legal.

abouttobebanned

What's the procedure for this usually? Run out of the shop and chase after the car while the people in the shop help themselves to the til? I'm a bit confused tbh

seamus

You cannot be held liable by your employer for theft by a 3rd party.

It would be illegal for your employer to force you to pay this money or deduct it from your wages.

sambuka41

abouttobebanned wrote: »

What's the procedure for this usually? Run out of the shop and chase after the car while the people in the shop help themselves to the til? I'm a bit confused tbh

Usually the station would have cameras, send it to the gardai, they'll take the licence plate and charge the person. Seen it on crime call a while back :p

Bandana boy

I Blame the parents

mikemac

Unless the boss wants you to vault over the counter, hop on a Ducati motorcycle and give chase, then what can you do?

Check the cameras, get a reg and call the gardai I suppose and even then if the shop is busy you're stuck behind the counter.

It's not your fault and your wages should not be touched over it

It's summer time, suggest to your boss then get in a young lad as fuel injection technican petrol pump guy and have him work the forecourt on minimum wage.
This seems to be dieing a death in Ireland but it does help to prevent drive offs

Shelflife

there aretwo types of drive offs.

1. where the customer fills petrol and drives off with no intention of paying.

2. where the customer fills petrol comes into the shop,picks up other groceries and assumes that the petrol has been added onto the bill.

In senario 1 the op wouldnt be liable , in senario 2 the op would be at fault as they never asked the customer if they got petrol .

even in senario 2 this would have to have been agreed to in the contract or in a sepatate agreement.

Danbo!

No way is this fair. I know it's easy for me to say but I'd tell the boss that short of standing in front of the car tienamen square style, there's nothing you can do about it.

I used to work in a petrol station and experienced this a few times. I got in trouble over it once or twice when i authorised the pump when It was Clearly gonna be a runner, but i mean a bit of a bollicking rather than being asked to cough up out of my wages!

There's usually signs it's going to happen such as engine running (ask them to switch off for safety) with drivers door open, passenger filling up with driver at the ready, parked at the pump nearest the exit, or, a little more prejudice, if someone was brimming their hiace. We had no external camera so we just took regs and reported it. If it looked suspicious we'd kill the pump and go down to apologise and say the pumps broken, ask them to move to a more awkward one for doing a runner, theyd usually cough up the few quid and leave.

There really isn't a lot you can do to prevent it and surely a petrol station manager has experienced it.

discus

OP, this sort of thing outrages me. Do not let him take money from you. Read that post from Seamus, and don't forget it.

cladda1112

yes this does happen,. Had it done to me while i was working in a shop for min wages and like you i couldnt stop him driving of without paying. Two young girls that were on even less money than me got their whole wages docked(part time)for the same thing and they walked out. Their father came in to see the manager and he refused to talk to them.Dont know what happened after but dont thint it went further. But i think it so wrong. Oh met their dad recently and he said that he never shoped there again and its his local filling station.

castie

As far as i know you have to give permissions for them to make deductions from your salary?

seamus

castie wrote: »

As far as i know you have to give permissions for them to make deductions from your salary?

Yes. Though you don't necessarily have to agree to it each time, if the contract states that the employer can make deductions for losses that the employee occurs (like broken stock or something), then they can just make the deduction and inform the employee.

However, any deductions must be fair and take account of the employee's circumstances - so they couldn't withhold the employee's entire weekly wage, nor expect a low-paid employee to repay thousands of euro in losses.

In this case though the employer cannot make a deduction for losses which did not occur through the fault of the employee.

_Kaiser_

Agree with Seamus - you (OP) cannot be held liable for the actions of a third party in a case like this.

Plus, in the OP it says you were on your lunch break? How is this even anything to do with you at all then??

ArphaRima

Know any solicitors?

This is bullsh1t of the highest order. Scumbag boss blaming staff when his own procedures do not mitigate the risk of it reoccurring.

cladda1112

just wondering how did things work out for you?

LimeFruitGum

Interesting thread. Who was covering while you were on break? Where was the manager during the incident? Isn't it the manager's ultimate responsibility that customers don't drive off and ensure employees' safety at work.
How's the staff turnover? :cool:

Viva La Gloria

I used to work in a garage and this kind of thing (drive-offs) happened all the time. But never were we expected to pay from our own pockets! I would love to see the expression on anyone's face if our old manager tried that one on us, no one would stand for it. Absolutely ridiculous, I can't believe they did that to you.

It was great though, on a few occasions, even with our god awful cctv quality, the Gards were able to track the reg plates and find the culprits :cool: