Gas Guzzler's dilemma

[Marduk]

Let me preface this by saying that I want complete candor here. Don't let the fact that this is a real situation and not a hypothetical prevent frankness or accuracy of response.

So I was at the gas station the other day, and after going in and paying, (I buy my gas with cash) I went to the pump and saw the three prices. They were listed as $3.65, $0.77, and $3.89. This piqued my curiosity, and despite normally filling with plus as my car requires, I put in the mid grade to see what happened. Long story short, my car's tank was filled for a little over ten bucks. I noticed after I filled that the price on the mid grade reverted to $3.77, the price listed on the marquee.

My question: is this immoral? Should I feel guilty? Should I have informed someone? Or did I just get lucky and all I should feel is gratitude?

[Fredjikrang]

I don't think you should feel guilty, but I probably would have mentioned it to the attendant, though honestly I probably would have filled up first (you know, to check.) ;D

[Craig Jessop]

Eh, I wouldn't worry about it. Back in April I filled my car for 2.53 a gallon, when the sign said 3.53. Maybe I'm just telling you you're in the clear to assuage my own guilty conscience, but I didn't feel guilty back then and I still don't.

Nice find, by the way.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

You should feel terribly guilty. And understand that you are going to go to the special hell that is reserved for people who get cheap gas and people who talk at the theatre.

--Devil's advocate

[Genuine Article]

I say chalk it up to luck. That, or you were secretly being filmed for an ethics experiment. But seriously, I wouldn't feel guilty.

[Marduk]

I don't think you should feel guilty, but I probably would have mentioned it to the attendant, though honestly I probably would have filled up first (you know, to check.) ;D

I would've said something, except the price reverted after I replaced the nozzle.

All, I know how I feel about this situation. I'm not looking for moral support here. What I'm trying to understand are the morals involved here on a larger scale.

[Fredjikrang]

Well then, I think the first question to answer is, did you do anything wrong? You paid for your gas, yes? Did you in any way try and deceive? Steal? Lie? I think that the only one of those that is even in question is steal. So, what does it mean to steal? Did you "take another persons property without permission or legal right and without intent of returning it?" I would say no. You paid for it. In fact, you paid in advance! So at least from that perspective, I don't think you did anything wrong.

However, one could always look at it as that you took advantage of someone else's mistake. Then the question becomes is it immoral to take advantage of the mistakes of others?

[Zedability]

As far as taking advantage of mistakes goes -

Last summer, I had a job working for the same company as my dad, who's the VP of Finance. They accidentally paid me for one more week in the summer than they should have. I asked my dad about it, and he looked into it a bit, and eventually he told me that my one week's paycheck wasn't worth the hassle of sorting it all out, and that I should just keep it, because it's not like I'd tried to defraud the company out of its money.

I've been looking for this Board question and can't find it anywhere, but a past writer had a similar experience where they'd received two copies of a computer software when they only ordered one, and after many hours on hold, they eventually told him that the $900 software wasn't worth the hassle of fixing it.

Your situation is a bit different, because a lot of gas stations are able to alter the total from their cash register, so it's not like it would have been a huge hassle. However, it's my experience that a lot of companies are used to sustaining minor losses from technology glitches, so it's not like you're harming the company.

If it were me, I'd probably go inside and tell them what happened, but I don't think the fact that you didn't is a big deal. This summer, it's looking like my job is going to not take my time off from when I went to Europe out of my paycheck, because they deduct vacation at the end of the year, and I'm leaving in August. I honestly don't intend to do anything about it, because I entered my vacation hours into the time tracker, and they've shown up on my paycheck, and if they system doesn't deduct it, that's the system, not me.

[krebscout]

I adopted my mother's policy, which is that if the transaction is more than a dollar off (in my favor or in the company's), I'll go back to correct it, but if it's less than that, I don't worry about it. This includes errors of misprinted prices or whatnot. So if it were me, I would have gone back to tell them about it or my very loud conscience would have never let it go. But I can hardly cast any first stones here. There was a particular vending machine in the HFAC that had the habit of spitting out two Butterfingers when you purchased one. And I took advantage of that machine. Many times. I think that's way worse, on account of it's first degree dishonesty.

[Katya]

first degree dishonesty

I like this phrase.

[Marduk]

So here's my dilemma: I feel a company should honor its listed price, even if that listed price costs them money. If I go to the mechanics and they quote me an amount for repair, and then suddenly try to charge me more because they found out it was more work than they originally thought, I think THAT'S dishonest. If a company offers a coupon that later turns out to cost the company money, I feel they still ought to honor it.

So, in this case, although there was a place where the price was listed differently, it was also listed on the pump as a certain price. I'm sure that this cost the company money. But I wonder if this is similar to those other cases. It isn't as though the transaction was incorrect. I didn't get something I didn't pay for. I paid the listed price and went on my way.

[Zedability]

Yeah, and like I said, I don't think we're responsible for the technology glitches that occur. It might be better to inform the company, but I see that as a supererogatory action, not a requirement.

[Laser Jock]

I think your own knowledge of the problem ought to factor into it. It was pretty obvious that something was amiss with the price of the medium-grade gas: no one who's ever bought gas before would think there was any way a price of $0.77/gallon is genuine, especially next to the other two grades being three dollars higher.

If you were misquoted a price for a repair but you had no way of knowing the quote was wrong, that's one thing; this is a different case, though, where you did have knowledge of what the price likely should have been.

(Not trying to condemn or pass judgment, here, just commenting on the arguments so far. )

[Digit]

I too have no room to judge, but this reminds me of Three Towels and a 25-Cent Newspaper.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

I too have no room to judge, but this reminds me of Three Towels and a 25-Cent Newspaper.

LIKE.

[krebscout]

So was this the gas station's fault, or was it the computer system's fault? If somebody leaves a more expensive item on the wrong shelf at Target so it looks like it's posted at a lower price, should the company be held to that? And I think that mechanics should absolutely be able to charge more than the quote if it's more work. A quote is an estimate. And as a freelancer, I give quotes, but I've charged more or less than that quote before because of the actual work that it took. Coupons, sure, I'll give you that — they're doing it to themselves, and coupons are nothing but a form of promotion. I think this was just a mistake on somebody or something's part, and you knew it was mistake. And you curiously wanted to see if it would work, which I would have, too.