$133 allegedly docked from Shell attendant’s salary after mystery car drives off without paying

[UPDATE: Oct 8]

The customer has paid for the petrol, a Shell spokesperson told 8World. As such, the attendant does not have to bear the cost of the mistake.

"Instances of unsuccessful payments for refuelling occur from time to time and are mostly accidental by nature," they said.

Shell also thanked the public for their concern over the matter and added that the company is reviewing the company's procedures to ensure fairness to all parties. 

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$133.80 may be a small amount to some, but not one petrol station attendant, who said he was made to pay for a customer's mistake.

The amount was allegedly docked from the attendant's salary after a customer at Shell Upper Bukit Timah PIE drove off without paying for his petrol, a concerned passer-by shared in a Facebook post on Monday (Oct 5).

The passer-by had spotted the attendant looking "dejected" while she was topping up her petrol that day, she recounted in the post which has since been taken down.

Asking after the man, who remains unidentified, she learnt that he reportedly had his pay docked after an incident in September where he failed to notice that a driver in a black Lexus had not made payment before leaving the petrol station.

The driver appeared to pay by swiping his Shell card, the attendant said. However, he was chatting with the driver at the time and did not realise that the transaction had not gone through.

Sharing the driver's license plate number, which the attendant had recorded on a piece of cardboard, she appealed for him to come forward as the money "meant a lot" to the attendant.

"Please share this message and help to look out for this driver and pass the message to him. Be kind and do not harass him as it is not my intention to go on a witch hunt," she wrote.

But in a shock twist, netizens quickly sussed out that the plate number did not exist — a search on the Land Transport Authority's One Motoring website revealed that there was "no record found" for that particular license number.

Addressing the incident in a statement provided to Mothership, Shell confirmed that the incident took place on Sept 18 at 6.56pm and added that it was "committed to resolve this matter as soon as possible".

"In cases like this, we are guided by a set of internal procedures to investigate and get in touch with the customer concerned."

The oil and gas company added that it would not be commenting further in order to respect the privacy of the customer and the attendant.

However, their statement did not confirm nor deny the allegations that the attendant had his pay docked. 

Additional reporting by Rainer Cheung. 

kimberlylim@asiaone.com