Despite the harsh economic conditions, one thing some Nigerians cannot do without is petrol especially those who have vehicles, generators and small businesses that require fuel. Petrol doesn’t come cheap as a litre of fuel goes for N145, while kerosene and diesel go for N175 and N185 respectively.
While Nigerians toil day and night under the sun and in the rain to buy petrol, fuel attendants have devised various ways of duping unsuspecting customers to make more money than they usually earn.
Next time you are at a petrol station, you have to pay attention to the pumps whenever you are being attended to in order not to be cheated.
In this investigative report, we explain some of the ways some of these fuel attendants dupe customers.
Fuel attendants are very close to one another. Unlike other places of work where you may find a few people not in speaking terms, it is a different situation at filling stations. As soon as a new employee resumes work, the older ones would warm up to him and stylishly put him through some of their shady dealings.
“It is one big family,” a pump attendant who refused to mention his name due to the sensitivity of the story said. “We are like brothers and sisters. We have each other’s back in almost everything we do,” he told The Next Edition newspaper. But you what? Their unity is detrimental to your interest.
At a famous filling station on the mainland in Lagos (name withheld), there are side attractions besides the fuel pump. For instance, some of them have television screens beside the pumps with the sole aim of distracting customers. By the time you are busy looking at the screen; the attendant would be busy pumping air instead of fuel. At the end of it all, instead of buying fuel worth N2, 000, they may sell fuel of N1, 700 to you.
How do they cheat you when you are unsuspecting? For instance, you want to buy 20 litres and someone ahead of you just bought five liters? After they sell five liters for one customer, if the next person who wants to buy 20 litres is not paying attention, they would continue from five liters instead of starting afresh. Maybe when you look at the machine, you will see that it is on 12 and you will wonder how it got there so fast. You may think you bought 20 litres, not knowing they sold 15 litres to you because it didn’t start counting at zero.
Mr. Adebayo Alao who worked at a filling station for seven years told The Next Edition of some of the tricks they use in cheating people. Smiling while reminiscing, he said “It is difficult to find any filling station in Nigeria where these things don’t happen. I don’t know of other countries, but as far as Nigeria is concerned, it happens almost everywhere,” he said.
We also learnt from Alao what they call automatic cheating. They make the meter faster than usual in order to dupe you. In that case, they don’t need to distract you. You will be cheated automatically.
Speaking further, Alao said, “When the Managing Director (MD) closes in the evening around 5pm or 6pm, the attendants who are like brothers and sisters would get their own technicians to tamper with the fuel meter for it to be faster than usual. When they do that, they won’t sell to you if you want to buy in a gallon. If they do, it would be obvious that they have shortchanged you. They only sell to those who want to fill their car tanks.
“Our favourite customers are the big men,” he said. “They don’t really care to observe. Ladies also are careless when it comes to buying fuel. But the commercial bus, taxi, tricycle and motorcycle drivers are very hard to cheat. Those ones are vigilant,” he said.
He continued, “Some of the pretty ladies you see selling are there to distract men who can’t take their eyes off women. By the time they are chatting with them, they are busy cheating you.”
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Asked what customers need to do, he said “Pay attention. Simple! Don’t get distracted. Look at the pump whenever you are there.”
Ifeanyi Chukwudi told The Next Edition of how he was almost cheated recently if not for his alertness “I went to a filling station to buy fuel in my car. I made use of the Point of Sale (POS) machine because there was no cash on me. I was buying N3, 000 fuel and when the POS started having problems the pump attendant stopped it at N600.
“When the service was back, he continued from N600 and stopped at 2400. Instead of adding 2400, he added 1800 on top, claiming it was 2,400. He wanted to dupe me of N600. He argued with me that he had sold 600 already and that he added N2, 400 making it N3, 000. When I insisted that he didn’t start all over; that was when he embarrassingly agreed that he had made a mistake. He just said oh I am sorry, I made a mistake. I knew it wasn’t a mistake but a way of trying to cheat me,” he said.
The Next Edition also learnt that in most fillings stations, attendants earn between N10, 000 to N15, 000 per month. The highest they get paid is N20, 000. Many believe that that is one of the reasons why it is very easy to convince a new staff in any petrol station to key into their dubious ways.
“How much is my take home pay?” a young man who works in a petrol station asked. The man who pleaded for anonymity said “I get paid N10, 000 everyone month. How many things can one do with that amount of money in a country where prices of things are increasing every day?”
Speaking about the cheating that goes on at fuel stations and the paltry sum the fuel station attendants are being paid, Mr. Salami Adeyinka, believes that the owners of these stations are well aware that the attendants cheat unsuspecting customers.
He said, “They know that the workers can’t cope with about N15, 000 a month. Don’t forget that some of these attendants are married people. Check out some of their phones. Some of them use big phones. Phones that cost over N40, 000. Do you think their bosses aren’t aware that their salaries alone can’t fund their lifestyles?”
With the biting economic situation, you don’t want to lose money to petrol jobbers. When next you are at a petrol station, don’t get carried away by any activity other than the petrol pump.
