Why are there no self-serve pumps in New Jersey? Does the State feel the the people can't do it themselves or is this politics?

At first glance I thought it was "Sorry, We don't know my our PIMP is overcharging you."

That would have been a much more exciting story...

I need to mix it with oil before filling the tank, so I keep a two-gallon container for it. I have a measured cup to provide a 50:1 mixture when added to exactly one gallon of gas.

I've run across half a dozen gas station employees who will just stare at me stupidly when I ask for one gallon of gas. If gas is three ninety-something a gallon, they ask if I want four dollars of gas. "No, I want one gallon of gas." Half the time they still try to round it out to the nearest dollar. And yeah - if they DO get it right, they're unable, unwilling, or just too dumb to make change.

What works the best is to carry exact change, round the gallon up to the nearest penny, hand them it in advance, and ask for exactly that much gas.

2.) The Sunoco is on Nassau st across from Blue Point Grille

3.) I've submitted an official complaint using the links above (hurray power of the comments). I received a confirmation and I'm mailing a copy of the receipt tomorrow.

Hopefully I will wield the sword of justice for all

PS. sorry for the lack of info Meg, I decided to submit while I was at running around @work this morning

Sorry, I thought the post ended with "what should he do." You can delete my last comment as being the product of a failure to read the rest of the post after the jump.

Guy should visit this website and file a complaint:
[www.state.nj.us]

@donkeyjote:

The cash/credit thing was popular about 20 yrs ago, and then for some reason it went away.

I don't understand why it's back now. Just because gas is expensive, are the gas companies cutting the margins for the station owners or something?

NJ gas stations are beginning to charge .04 - .08 cents on each dollar for people that pay with debit / credit cards instead of cash - becuase it takes up too much time to deal with debit / credit cards. I bet that is what happened here.

@donkeyjote:

I'm from NJ and old enough to remember:

Free state maps anytime
Free drinking glasses with fill up
Tiger-in the tank tails
ARCO Ark animals (the animals were free but you had to buy the ark)
No such thing as "mini-serve" -- it was one price and full service all the time.

Yeah, and around that time gas was 34.9 cents per gallon.

Oh and I asked for a manager who would be around in "about an hour". I was kind of in a hurry so I could stay, thus forcing the quick snapshot and blur (I held onto the receipt)

@ekthesy:

Nassau st in princeton by blue point grille (the fish restaurant)

I read some posts in here about being charged .04 before ever pumping a gallon of gas.We had this conversation in my barbershop a week ago.

I am not an engineer nor a physicist but I suspect that gas prices are so high that before whenever you turned the pump on, it would pump a certain amount to fill the hose and that used to be less than a penny and probably wouldn't register but now...gas is so expensive that the mere act of activating the pump is pushing .04 of gas through the hose to await you to pull the trigger to empty the hose contents into your tank.

Or...it could be something more diabolical and i, for once, am guilty of being naive.

I remember in HS, people used to try and reverse scam by ONLY requesting dollar amounts for gas. They would only do $5, $10, or $20.... if the pumped amount was incorrect they would try and bust, hoping to get away with free gas. Not sure how many actually got away with it. I suspect only a few as the gas stations were all owned by a few very powerful businessmen who I doubt would put up with people making them look bad.

@ekthesy: Mountainside? Berkley Heights? Union County's small, area wise, but that still a lot of gas just to get my windows cleaned :P

Disagree. If they pumped the wrong fuel, it would be $4.229, not $4.219.

I'm surprised it took so long for someone to suggest this and that you're the only one so far.

It's easy... report the station to the department of weights and measures and then call the credit card company. The photo is pretty good proof, the OP will get back the 54 cents he was wrongly charged and the station will get what's coming to them.

@PDX909:

I agree. It's pretty clear that the amount of gas under the $4.15 costs $4.22.

As for the OP, this pricing error is not frequent, but it does happen. My bet is that the clerk didn't know how to change the price in the CC machine so just left it at the old price until the manager came in. Due to W&M law, your reciept has to show the amount of gallons purchased, price per gallon, and total purchased. The old non-integrated CC machines have to have the new prices manually entered after a price change.

Rarely--and I emphasize the "rare"--you'll come across a station where the guy will squeegee your windows. It's exponentially more likely to happen at an "independent" station where the owner only owns that location and pumps the gas himself.

If you live in Union County, the Shell on Mountain Ave. in Mountainside and Chet's Getty on Springfield Ave. in Berkeley Heights--they'll wash your windows for you, every time.

The oil-check, sadly, is as dead as the dodo. I just check it myself.

In Jersey, the whole cash/credit price difference is really prevalent among most stations, with one big exception being Hess. I haven't seen them charge different prices, and some Sunocos; but most charge about $0.10-$0.15 more/gal. I have a Hess card which gets 10% back (first three months of having the card) so it's cool to get the Jersey price minus 10% (I live in PA where the taxes are higher). I pump it anyway, as I'm on the road and it's nice to get out and stretch, also I always have to go into the station because it's diesel and most of the diesel pumps don't have readers.

Anyway, I digress. A station near my house recently got their signs changed to show a cash/credit price, but most of the time the two prices are the same. Guess my neighborhood doesn't take kindly to charging higher for using your card.

Also, they are supposed to ask you to punch in your PIN yourself. Some stations even have the little PIN pads on a wire - like the ones inside - that they can hand you in your car to keep it more secure instead of doing it on the pump.

Absolutely contact weights and measures. I used to work for a gas station, and if new jersey's is anything like Ohio's, they will bring the hammer down so hard and so fast that that gas station won't know what hit them.

That may not get you your refund, but go back when the manager is in and see if he can help.

I got my gas pumped at a Wawa in NJ last week and handed over my debt card, and the pimple-faced teen pumping my gas said he needed my pin number to use my debt card... but I wasn't allowed to get out of my car and punch it in myself because that was illegal, so he wanted me to just TELL him my pin numbers.

I refused and gave him cash. Wtf though, that seemed so shady... ah, New Jersey, always so shady!

Yea, me neither... :(

"hey man, I'm paying for gas not scratches."

Oops. (our job = my job in that last post)

@JeffMc: i emailed them. i wonder if it will help.

@jasezero: That is lame. Because there are cheats out there, the OP shouldn't care when he's cheated?

I guess the next time I'm in Macy's, if they overcharge me for something I should just shut up. After all, the guy before me might have changed a price tag and ripped Macy's off.

It's not my job to make sure the gas station isn't being cheated. It's our job to make sure that I am not being cheated.

Duh, the Sunoco near the Engineering quad in Princeton. *smack*

Which Sunoco? I am also a New Jerseyan (also named Matt) and want to avoid this joint. Bad enough you can't even pump it yourself.

Yesterday I filled up on the way home from the Delaware Water Gap, sitting in my car, the attendant hooks up the pump and it doesn't start. I get out of my car to jiggle the handle so the pump starts and he runs over yelling at me "GET BACK IN YOUR CAR! THAT'S ILLEGAL!" "Just trying to save us both some time here." WTF.

You bring up a very good point. Seeing as how NJ is full serve only (by law), i wonder how many people get overcharged and never even know. I'm sure most are in too much of a hurry to get out and check, or whip out a calculator and crunch the numbers before driving away...

i noticed my gas station automatically charged me .04 before i even had it in the tank this morning.

Anyway, I can see him leaving if he was pressed for time, since usually you fill up while, you know, driving somewhere... but I can't help but think if he had pressed the issue maybe the employee would have a) called a manager, b) given him the difference in cash, and c) investigated the pump and possibly shut it down until it could be fixed.

Maybe.

@AlteredBeast: Yeah I had it out once with an attendant who did a "classic oversqueeze" trying to round it to the nearest quarter and then tried to squeeze it up to the next quarter after that and missed that one, too! I could tell he was going to try and squeeze it up ANOTHER quarter before I told him to quit it!

"Professional gas dispensing specialists" indeed!

My guess is that they raised prices and didn't change the sign to reflect that. Of course that's still fraud, and the Weights and Measures people will love the chance to come down hard on these people. I say report 'em.

Random NJ Gas Station story. Keep in mind, it is all full serve in NJ, no self serve allowed. While being filled up, a guy walked up with a gallon gas can and had it filled. The attendent tried to top it off to round off to an even dollar amount, but the guy wanted just 1 gallon (I believe it was $3.90 at the time). They got in a HUGE arguement because the attendent didn't carry change. Strange to think that something is being advertised "per gallon" yet you get a hard time when trying to buy 1 gallon.

Trying to figure out how to blame Matt for something...