Gas-Saving Moment of the Day: Watch Out for a Cheating Pump
Gas pumps can tally your bill incorrectly due to shoddy maintenance, defective parts or incompetence on the part of the station. Here are four screw-ups to look out for.
- Watch for the nozzle clicking off but the meter continuing to charge you money. It should only be a few pennies, but it happens with some frequency.
- If the meter says gas has been pumped before you even pull the handle, this is because of a worn interior part. When you hit the activate button, the pump draws in a bit of gas to prime itself, but this should not cost you anything.
- Occasionally, the pump will simply give you less gas than it’s charging you for. This can happen for several reasons and there’s not much you can do about it other than keep a watchful eye.
- Although this is less likely than the first three, sometimes gas station personnel will forget to change the road sign advertising their prices. As everyone knows, gas prices change daily, so simple human error can leave you holding a gas receipt that seems too high (or, if you’re lucky, too low).
The easiest way to catch any or all of these miscalculations is to stop pumping gas when you reach 10 gallons. The price should 10 times the amount of one gallon, which means everything is honky-dory — or at least as honky-dory as things can be with gas in the $4 a gallon ballpark.
4 Ways Gas Pumps Screw You (The Consumerist)
Related:
More Gas-Saving Moments of the Day (KickingTires)
