An Ontario driver says he was pumping gas like usual, but when he removed the nozzle from his tank, the meter kept running even though no fuel was coming out.
Sergey Aleksandrov, of Vaughan, said it was in mid-August when he stopped to buy fuel with his girlfriend at a Petro Canada gas station just north of Toronto.
“As I was taking out the nozzle out of my car from the gas tank, the meter kept running,” said Aleksandrov. “The numbers kept running with no gas being dispensed. I caught that on video.”
Holding his phone in one hand and the gas pump nozzle in the other, his video clearly shows the litre and dollar amount on the screen continue to increase, even though no fuel is being dispensed.
“It was a worrying situation because the meter kept running as if I’m being scammed out of my money,” said Aleksandrov. “In my head I thought, ‘I need to record this because nobody is going to believe me.’”
Aleksandrov said he was unable to get answers from the gas station as to what happened and after two months questioning Petro Canada’s customer service, he was eventually offered a gift card and a refund for his gas purchase.
Aleksandrov believes he was overcharged less than 50 cents but is concerned it may have happened to other customers as well.
“What was going through my mind is all the people that pumped gas before me, how much extra were they overcharged? Did they collect from them too?,” he said.
CTV News asked Dan McTeague, a gas expert who monitors fuel prices and is the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, was asked to view the video to get his opinion.
“It’s clear the machine malfunctioned,” said McTeague. “Machines don’t normally do that but when they do, they can make big mistakes.”
McTeague said he doesn’t suspect foul play or tampering and added it appears the gas pump had a mechanical failure.
McTeague said pumps are monitored for accuracy and that something like this happening is very rare.
“They are state of the art, and they do not normally make mistakes,” he explained. “If there is an error, it’s not to benefit the retailers. (The mistakes) more often than not hurt the retailer.”
When CTV News reached out to Petro Canada, it’s parent company Suncor said, “We worked to resolve the issue as soon as it was brought to our attention and the pump was taken out of service immediately for maintenance. We regularly inspect our on-site equipment, including pumps, to ensure everything is in working order.”
Aleksandrov said he just wanted to get a straight answer as to what happened.
“I just want to make sure no one else gets affected by this.”
Gas pumps have a sticker that shows the last time that they were inspected, but if you feel you were overcharged or a pump was faulty, you can file a complaint with Measurement Canada, which will investigate.
