[Resolved]  Indian Oil Corporation — cheating in petrol station unabated

Cheating by Petrol pumps in Delhi.

An incident happened with me on 12th March, 2010. I was on my way to Nizamuddin Railway Station and my car's Petrol level was very low and I went to Aman Fill Point, National Highway, Mayur Vihar Phase II an Indian Oil Petrol outlet, to fill the tank of my car. Many of my friends told me earlier also that Aman Fill Point cheats customers regularly by giving less petrol than they pay. Since I had no other option, I had to go to this petrol pump for the first time. It was around 0745 hrs. and no other vehicle was in the pump.

I gave Rs. 1000/- and asked them to fill the tank. I made sure that it is 0.00 on the machine. I fixed my eyes on the machine, as I was cautioned by many of my friends about this pump. When the meter showed around Rs.360/- one person came to clean up the car with a bucket and a mop in hand and told me to roll up the windows. As I started rolling up the windows and diverted my attention, the person filling the tank stopped the machine. When I looked up, Rs.1, 000/- was shown on the meter. I was surprised to see this, as 5 seconds ago, I have seen Rs.365/- on the meter and within a span of seconds, it shows Rs.1000/-.

I was not in a mood to argue or make a complaint, as I was getting late for reaching railway station. So I drove away in a suspicious mood. Normally, whenever I fill my tank Rs.1000/- the needle in the fuel meter reaches almost 85% full. (Wagon R has a fuel tank capacity of more than 30 litres- for Rs.1000/- we should get 21-odd litres of petrol). But this time the needle remained below the half way mark. I spoke this matter to my fellow passengers and my sister-in-Law, who was sitting in the back seat noticed that when I was busy rolling up windows of the car, the needle reached Rs.430/- and the attendant stopped filling and manually fed Rs.1000/- on the machine, which was shown after filling the tank. She was not aware much about these things and did not smell anything unusual about it. Hence she did not caution me at that time.

Two hours later, when I was passing through that way, I went to the petrol pump and met the supervisor and narrated him the entire story. He led me to the Manager of the pump and I again narrated the entire story to him too. I gave him my visiting card also. He told me to come to the petrol pump the next day and told his supervisor not to relieve the night duty attendants till I come to the petrol pump to identify the culprit. He was not at all apologetic and through his body language I was sure that this malpractice is being done with his knowledge only. He was not at all appeared to be sincere in his behavior. I told him I am not remembering

anybody's face to identify, he was laughing at me that I don't have any proof to support my allegation. I understand he was arranging an identification parade only for an eye-wash.

I went back to my office and I did not go for the identification parade. If he was sincere in stopping the malpractice, he would have definitely contacted me, as he was having my visiting card with him, where all my contact details are mentioned.

I understand that they are providing this extra service of cleaning the windows of customers is only to divert the attention and this is being done with the full knowledge of the management. When I spoke this matter to many of my friends, they also told me that many of them also experience same cheating from the very same petrol pump.


James Kurian