My Life

Look at your receipt...

There are few things that irritate me more than starting my Monday morning off with an irate customer.

Let me just tell you here and now. If someone calls me, threatening to sue or turn me in for overcharging, or proceed to cuss me out...I can promise you that in the end, that person will feel about 2 inches tall. Know that I will go out of my way to make them fully aware of the idiot moron they obviously are! But I will always be very kind in the process.

Here is my story for today...

About 8:00 this morning I answered the phone. The ‘not very pleasant’ gentleman (term used loosely) on the other end, informs me that he filled up with gas at my store Saturday night and was charged for 17+ gallons of gas when he only has a 16 gallon tank. Should be clue number one. He went on to say that he was going to turn my company into the better business bureau as well as sue me. He threw in some very colorful language as well. Whoa dude, only on the third cup of coffee...step back!

He did seem almost intelligent, for a minute. He informed me he had gone about 120 miles. His tank gets whatever to the gallon, and it holds sixteen gallons of gas. Therefore, it was not possible to put in 17 gallons of gas. That’s pretty much the moment I knew I was getting ready to show him what a moron he was. Can we say bells and whistles here? HELLO?

Oh, and the fact that his wife was somebody important and she would be handling the case. Well that was just icing on the cake.

I informed him that the Texas Department of Weights and Measures had just tested the pumps last month. (It’s standard procedure to do that once a year) The pumps had checked out fine.

He went on with his rant while I listened attentively, gathering all the information that would be needed in order to put him in his place properly. When he was through, I asked him to look at the receipt (that he had in his possession) and tell me if the last four digits of the account number on the receipt matched the last four digits on his credit card. Well to his surprise, they did not. It was no surprise at all to me! This was going to be too easy. Two inches tall, coming up!

I told him I would look at the journal tapes and find out how much his credit card had actually been charged. All I needed to know was what time of day it was and what pump he had used. When he gave me the information, I asked him to wait 10 minutes and call me back. He assured me, he would. Mind you, the time is on the receipt that he had in his possession. The same receipt he had to look at to tell me what pump he had used. I wondered if wheels were starting to turn for him yet? Apparently not, he said it was around 6:00pm.

I quickly gathered the information from the journal tape for that day. When he called back, I informed him that his credit card had been charged $17.02 for 10.14 gallons of gas at 6:14pm.

He was pretty quiet! I said, “Sir, would you like the confirmation number that will appear on you credit card statement?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I’m sorry I wasted your time. Thank you for the information.”

“No problem at all sir, I‘m just so sorry that you went through all this. I’m always happy to help where I can. I can fax you the information if you would like.”

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

“Please let me know if I can do anything further to help.”

“No ma’am, thanks...click.”

Come to find out. This gentleman had wasted the entire weekend stewing over the issue. He had called my cashier 3 times on Sunday (long distance) harassing her.

Let me just say: If you ever think you’ve been overcharged for something, anything. There are ways to find out on your own before you shred the manager of the establishment.

1: Contact your credit card company and see how much your credit card has been charged. If it was indeed an overcharge, they can stop payment right then. They will even handle the issue for you after they are made aware.

2: Go to the world wide web and pull up your statement.

3. Contact the Manager and inform them you feel you may have been over charged.


OK, I’m getting off my soapbox now...But Dude ticked me off!