MADINAH, 11 May 2004 — Underpaid, housed in ramshackle accommodation and forced to work long hours for no extra pay, desperate gas pump attendants resort to cheating to make a few extra riyals.
Taking advantage of the fact that few drivers look closely at the gas counter when they pull in, attendants, instead of letting the counter revert to zero, hang the pump up so lightly that the numbers stay where the previous customer left off.
According to Al-Madinah Arabic daily, the next customer ends up paying both for his own gas and for the previous customer’s, and the attendants pocket the difference.
Disgruntled customer Hussein Al-Mutairi told the paper the practice was widespread.
“The problem is that most drivers are not aware of the trick and they don’t bother to look at the gas counter before it starts running,” he told the paper.
Hasan Bukhari found out how it is done from painful experience. “A driver pulls in and asks for SR60 worth of gas. The attendant starts the counter at SR30, and in no time it’s up to SR60.
“The customer pays and drives away with only SR30 worth of gas. This is a 100 percent theft,” he said.
One customer wondered how many times he inadvertently fell prey to the scam. “But I don’t think that all of them are the same,” Muhammad Saleh added. “A lot of them must be honest workers.”
Police said they received a number of complaints about pump attendants cutting corners and warned drivers to be vigilant.
