'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

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Ah, you should read the story in the link (edited, above now to emphasize that it makes it clear...). Drivers called around to spread the news, and they were 2 deep at the pumps. Total hit to the station was over $1500.

(As to the safety, yeah, that is actually the norm in much of the US, where small towns don't keep someone around to stare at nothing all night, but automated pumps allow CC transactions.)

Anyhow, so people called around and lots headed there to take advantage. Not an after-pumping look at the total, "um, that's kind of cheap.. humh, no one around, ok, screw it, I am out of here." Rather, knowing the price to be wrong, they headed over to take advantage.

So, ethics of the actual situation reported in the story? How about that it's a small town and these are the owner's neighbors?

I love "situational ethics" questions. 8-)

[ivy]

Yeah, that's not okay. I might have done it unknowingly, and then looked at my total and gone "whoa, what?", but if I knew it was a programming mistake, I'd feel bad taking advantage of it. It seems doubly awful in a small town situation, where you're going to have to brazenly face the person you knowingly screwed over.

I give back the money when cashiers accidentally under-charge me at checkout stations too.

While I know that most people are more self-interested than honest, particularly when it comes to business and finance, 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.