A Nebraska woman allegedly found a lucrative quirk at a gas station pump — double-swipe the rewards card and get free gas!
Unfortunately for her, you can’t do that, prosecutors said. The 45-year-old woman was arrested March 6 and faces felony theft charges accusing her of a crime that cost the gas station nearly $28,000.
Prosecutors say the woman exploited the system over a period of several months. Police learned of the problem in October when the loss-prevention manager at Bosselman Enterprises reported that the company’s Pump & Pantry in Lincoln had been scammed.
I mean if the pump is set up not to force you to pay before pumping gas and you just pump gas and leave that’s obviously theft.
They’ll prove that she knew what she was doing. They’ll prove she knew that she was supposed to pay for the gas. They’ll prove that she did the double swipe to get the gas. But probably more damning, if that $28,000 figure is right in 6 months she wasn’t just getting herself free gas.
It’ll be interesting to hear more details like do they know that it was her every time and not other people. If she told other people how to double swipe and get the gas that’s probably fine. Maybe she was giving other people her card and instructions on how to do it that’ll be interesting to see how it plays out in court if she doesn’t settle.
Settle? this is a criminal case not a civil one. Maybe they will plead to something lesser, but ether way it is very bad precedent.
The issue here, is that someone took advantage of a broken pos system and now they are being charged. If this stands you now have the base to potentially charge anyone who uses a broken piece of tech, and tech is getting crappier and crappier by the day.
It does not matter if she took advantage or what the motive was. The underling issue is that now users can be on the hook for bad products. That is terrifying.