Witnessed odd transaction (poss fraud) in petrol station shop - would you report it.

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MandaC

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Being one to never miss a trick, saw today what appears to be a funny/odd transaction in the local garage/garage shop.

Couple at the next pump to me, she gets bottle of soft drink and queues up ahead of me at the checkout. Only us in the shop. She hands in the bottle of soft drink and says to the guy behind the counter "can I have a receipt"

Guy behind counter starts foostering about and says "how much?", to which she replies €20, can you not see (not in a rude way, but in a questioning way) Guy behind counter starts talking down to his shoes and mumbling, no, no its not working. Boyfriend comes in, he had been hovering outside at the pump in a funny way, thats what made me look at him first, whispers something to the girl, nods at the guy behind the counter. Guy behind counter goes, ah yeah, its working now. She hands in €50 and her transaction comes to €1.75 (which was just the soft drink) and the change clocks up on screen as €48.25. He does not give either of them a receipt. Then they both go back to their car, put a load of petrol in it and drive off.

I saw how much was clocked up on the till, but I did not see how much change he gave back. It was not a pre-pay pump, so why where they paying before they filled up. Why ask for a receipt and not get one. I dont know how garage systems work, but I think the soft drink was clocked up, some cash was taken for petrol and the pump released. I did not see how much petrol they got at the end.

Now before you go all saying, it could be nothing, etc, I worked as an area manager for 3 stores before in retail furniture and was sent out to investigate fraudulent transactions/staff discrepancies, people trying to void the tills etc, so I am pretty clued in for stuff like this and it was in my mind a very dubious transaction. Would you report it, or just mind your own business.

I hate dishonesty of any kind and with the way the climate is going I would hate for staff to lose jobs, etc because of low figures while others line their pockets at the owners expense.
 
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Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

I dont really get what went on!
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

sounds a bit mad alright
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

I've read your post three times and still don't know what to think of this! Very weird!
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

Yeah, it was a weird one allright.

Ok, here's the way it would have worked in retail when I was there..........it usually happened on the likes of pictures/bed linen.....but it happens in shops/garages etc.

Customer knew which was the dishonest employee. Approached till with a load of bedlinen/pictures or whatever. Said something like, oh, I hear you are a friend of Bernie's, or whatever they were told to say. Dishonest employee then knew they had met dishonest customer.

Customer might have had goods totalling €250 (five or six different items). Only 1 or two items was put into the till, but all items go into the customers bag to take away. Say item came to €50, but customer was leaving with six items worth €250.00. Customer hands in €100, gets a receipt for €50 and cashier keeps the €100. Once the customer goes away, cashier removes €50, into the pocket. Dishonest person gets €250 worth of goods for €100, cashier gets €50. We lost thousands on it.

This looked like the same kind of thing only in a different way.

In the case of the garage, the boyfriend sent the girl in to ask for a receipt (probably the tip off) Guy behind counter wary and wanted to suss out whether she wanted a receipt or a "receipt". When the boyfriend came in and gestured the guy, he knew it was a cash transaction. So, hand in €50, clock up €1.75, but take say €21.75. Till is €20 over. Pump is then released and they take, say €40 of petrol. They drive off and cashier is up €20.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

She thinks the cashier allowed the couple to fill the car with petrol for €20.00 cash into his hand ? i.e. he just charged for the drink so as to look legit for CCTV.
 
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Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

Oh right, I get you know. Would the levels of petrol in the stores going down quicker not be a giveaway to this kinda thing?!

Do you know the owner of the garage?
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

I dont really know how the petrol pumps work, so I dont know how exactly they are measured, or how you would go about disguising any discrepancies, or even if you can. Or perhaps because of the amount of transactions that anybody even checks. Or how often. The way it worked in retail, there were stock checks and random till checks, but they were not audited enough to be honest. I remember doing a stock check on the Bed Linen and we were out something like 500 Quilts!

There was another one, where a whole road got their houses carpeted cut price.

Probably ahead of their time...BOGOF before it was even invented!

I dont even know if €20 and €40 are the correct variances. €1.75 was clocked into the till, I saw the transaction and the time, yet they went outside (put petrol into their car) and then drove off. Without being given their receipt which they wanted in the first place.

No, I dont know the Garage owner. It is a reasonably new garage, part of a chain....are they frachises or what?
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

It sounds iffy; a relative was defrauded of thousands by two people in his shop. Their scheme was to input say 3.99 and charge the customer the right price of 13.99. It was a store with 15 employees, the accountants copped something was wrong but it took cctv to catch them. With petrol, as far as I know, they dip the tanks but unless it's done daily I imagine it would be very difficult to pin down who's doing this. Didn't Mgt. Heffernan take fierce flak when she said that employees not shoplifters were the main culprits in her stores?
Might be worth your while to ring up and ask for the manager, and without giving your name or the employees name, just mention your concerns. That way ,if everything is kosher , well, no harm done, but if the management are tipped off then they know what to look for. I'd have no sympathy for thiefs. The min wage usually with little or no tax isn't that bad a wage; if it was , we wouldn't have had so many coming here to work, and thiefs at the end of the day hurt everyone.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

Sorry to hear about your relative. No time for thieves myself. Am pretty sure I am on the right track unfortunately. But both customer and cashier were aware of it. Word has probably got out to go there when say, John is on. Will probably follow up discreetly and and they can do their own audit, if they wish. .

I would think that the pumps take a reading, which should match the tills, but because of the volume of transactions per day, you would be there till doomsday trying to do a rec, so they are not audited properly, unless suspicions are raised and a definite line is being followed.

What I used to hate when I was doing these kind of Audits was that until the thief was caught, then everyone was a suspect. Its very hard to work with people when you know one of them was a thief. A particularly nasty girl not only dipped the till, but dipped the other girls purses in their handbags too! When she was caught (red handed on CCTV) but only after a fair bit of money went missing, I thought the other girls were actually going to physically attack her they were so angry.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

Definitely sounds fishy; this sort of thing would be very difficult to conceal, unless there is some sort of mechanical or software glitch with the pumps - but possibly there is.

Or perhaps the shop is very badly managed. There is a meter reading on each pump and you are supposed to take the reading at the start and end of each shift. When petrol is taken, it automatically goes through to the cash register. The petrol must then be cashed off at the till before more petrol can be served (actually slightly more sophisticated-the till will queue 2 or sometimes 3 transactions per pump; but the thing is, they do sit there until cashed off -so they should show up as a till shortage). In other words, at the till it is only possible to cash off the actual petrol served at the pump and you can't NOT cash it off, as it sits there until end of shift otherwise.

I also have twitchy radar for till-fiddling, but in a petrol station the most likely fraud is failure to ring in non-petrol items and pocketing the cash.

But, as I say, there may be some sort of system glitch in this station; it sounds rather like there might well be.

I would definitely report.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

I'd agree with Brianne, a call to the manager/owner or the place and let them check it out....thought the manager could be in on it also.

There was a case of a very busy pub & the owner couldn't work out why their profits were so low, so he hired a private investigator. The PI came into the pub & watched the staff & reported back to the owner that all looked fine - the staff didn't appear to be giving out free drinks, they seemed to charge for everything, and they seemed to put all the money in one of the 5 tills....."5 tills" said the owner, "I only have 4 tills in the pub!" The manager had put in his own till.

Similar to the OP....in the USA (many moons ago) there was a house of Irish lads living near us & oine of them worked in the local "7-11" on the graveyard shift. His mates would come in & get loads of stuff, go to the till and be charged for just a pack of chewing gum (so the CCTV would pick up a transaction) and they'd leave with their "heist". But the guy got lazy & waved about 3 of them out the door one night & got fired!
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

Report them. Find out who owns the Garage -- not the Manager and make a discreet call. And if you have any doubts remember you might be a pussy cat one day yourself.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

Report it. Ultimately you'll pay more for your petrol if the owner is losing 'stock' like this.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction in local garage - would you report it.

I think you should report it too Manda, perhaps you could figure out if 'John' is the manager or someone high up, and try and find the owner if possible. If its a chain, you could call or email head office and they'd be able to give you the details.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction (poss fraud) in petrol station shop - would you report

Was he/she the sole sales assistant on the day? would other members of staff not have noticed what was going on and if you know the day and time of day would it not be possible (if you do report it), to watch the CCTV of the couple driving off after putting petrol in their car - hence get an ID from the number plate.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction (poss fraud) in petrol station shop - would you report

I would report your suspicions to the manager and let him/her take it on from there. I admire your observation skills MandaC!
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction (poss fraud) in petrol station shop - would you report

She has an eagle eye alright! Perhaps this guy was the manager though? So in this case you would have to be very careful.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction (poss fraud) in petrol station shop - would you report

Smashbox said:
She has an eagle eye alright! Perhaps this guy was the manager though? So in this case you would have to be very careful.
Click to expand...

Good point.
 
Re: Witnessed odd transaction (poss fraud) in petrol station shop - would you report

There was only one staff member on behind the till and one behind the food section. He must have ben acting manager. But not really an authorative manager. From my time at Retail, I would be quite switched on to this kind of thing. Would make a great PI!
 
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