'Your mistake, my gain'... or petty larceny?

[doc_strange]

MINOCQUA, Wis. - Dozens of drivers made a mad rush for cheap gas after a station employee accidentally changed the price to 33 cents a gallon. [...]

Full story here.  Read it, please, then post your opinion.

Would you rush there and gas up... or try to call the manager?  What are the ethics here?  Discuss.

Comments

[girlvinyl.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call the manager. How do you even get the phone number of a gas station manager? That makes no sense. Did no one go inside to pay for their gas at this price? Was a second employee paying no attention at all? Goodness. It's not stealing and it isn't dishonest. These things happen and it's the price of doing business.

Of course, I'm the kind of person that sees XSS vulns and just goes on about my web browsing day. Just because you notice a problem doesn't mean it's your responsibility to fix it every single time.

[feonixrift.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Key things: a) the main sign had the right price, b) this is one state over from areas that've had shortages.

I'd've taken the gas ("honest mistake", I likely wouldn't have noticed it was off 'til it was done pumping), not told anyone about the "great deal", called the manager if there was an obvious number, then offered to make up the difference the next day. Building honor is more important to me than a few dollars, and it'd be a chance to make up the difference in some other way than money if I was running short.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

I thought about this last night when I saw the story. No, I wouldn't have participated — I'm another of those folks who gives back extra change. And, as one of your commenters said:

if I were the gas station owner, it'd still come as an unwelcome shock that my neighbors were all willing to do this to me. And I'd want to know who, so that I would know not to trust them further than I could throw them in the future.

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

I woudn't rush there and gas up - there's no way a $3 a gallon discount is intentional, and it's not like it's a loss leader or any of the other reasons why something might be discounted. Given that the station owner is losing $30 or so per tank of gas, if I were the first to notice, or were to hear about it, I'd call the manager (especially given that in a small town, odds are good I know him).
This is a good situational ethics question - at what price point does a person become willing to take the discount. For me, I'm certainly willing to accept a free soda, given that it will take more than the soda is worth for me to try to track down who to give the money to (and also given that the owner of the machine has certainly gotten money without dispensing a soda before).

Since everyone who bought gas paid with a credit card, the owner of the gas station certainly knows who the 42 people who got the reduced price gas are. In his shoes, I'd go to each of them and say "You got $X worth of gas that you didn't pay for. You can either pay me that much, or you can see your name up on the list I post at the station."

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Depends on who the owner of the station is. If it was run by the Feds, hell yes I'd fill up. And come back with 55 gallon drums and fill those, too. They steal enough from me that I'm perfectly willing to capitalize on their mistakes.

If it was owned by a real human, if I noticed the difference, well, it would depend on how bad I needed gas. I wouldn't run out just to save the owner money on a mistake they made. But if I lived in town, I'd probably go back to point out to them that they needed to change their pump programming. I figure that's only fair, as I've made gas stations give me money when the pump didn't match the sign. (In their favor.)