Gas thieves, and who pays?

[Reciprocity]

So I'm watching the local news and the report is on gas thieves. The high price of gas has caused a rash of drive off with no pay in my little quiet redneck town. No surprise here. Then they interview one of the clerks at the gas station, who says that if someone doesn't pay for gas they take it out of her check. I find this so unfair. A crime has been committed and the poor clerk ( earning minimum wage) pays for it out of her pocket. I would need to be desperate to work for a company who did this to me.

[Beware the Beast Man]

1. The Mom & Pop stations are feeling the squeeze as it is.

Most places make either nothing or lose money on gas. They make up the expense in either garage work or convenience store sales. Poor folks- they suffer just as much as we do from these ridiculous price hikes.

[Clintmax]

2. The clerk pays?

I find that hard to believe! How could they expect a clerk inside the store to stop someone who gets back into their car and drives away? The clerk has to be ringing up the customers inside the store and can't jsut run out and leave the place unattended! I would tell the manager he could take that job and SHOVE it!

[Maddy McCall]

3. The way they solve that here...and I am sure elswhere...

is either you pay at the pump before you pump, or you walk inside and pay before you pump. Very few places here allow you to pump first and then pay.

I think it's a good policy, and it keeps big, fat, rich gas companies from screwing their minimum wage employees by making them pay for drive-offs.

[MADem]

4. Yep--no credit card to swipe, you gotta go inside and pay first

First place I encountered that was Europe...which was the first place I encountered four buck a gallon gas (a bargain there, now).

[TheMightyFavog]

5. In Wisconsin

We have laws that punish people who dive off with license revocation.

Although having one's license revoked doesn't necssesarily keep people from driving.

[Roland99]

6. Would these be * supporters driving off?

[Reciprocity]

7. Honey I live in deep East Texas.

My hubby and I are like two blueberries in an ocean of tomato sauce. So the odds are yes. They were Bush supporters. I was stunned that they took it out of her pay. Like I said I'd need to be bloody desperate to work for an employer who did that to me.

[Roland99]

8. If I was the clerk, I'd be checking that license plate from the video

and tracking their asses down.

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. I doubt that it is legal to take it out of the employees wages

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but if one complained

bye-bye job

it's a catch-22 thingie there

imagine if clerks got dinged for all the shoplifting going on?

gotta be illegal to take it off wages

BUT

sum laws are "irrelevant" in the new USS of A