Shell Confirms That Pump Attendant Didn’t Have to Pay $133.80 Worth of Petrol for Lexus Driver

We’ve all had bad days at work.

Sometimes your boss berates you for no reason, sometimes your ailing computer fails you, and other times you have such severe diarrhoea that you have to visit the bathroom every 15 minutes and can’t get any work done.

Reader: That last one sounds oddly specific

It’s just an example, dear reader. 

But what if you’re a pump attendant at a petrol station who has to fork out over a hundred bucks just because a customer’s payment didn’t go through?

Facebook User Claims Shell Deducted Petrol Expenses From Attendant 

In a Facebook post on Monday (5 Oct), a user claimed that she had gone to a Shell petrol station at Bukit Timah that evening and saw a pump attendant sitting outside the kiosk looking downcast.

The post appeared to have been deleted.

When the user asked the attendant if he had had dinner, he replied that he only had biscuits and showed her a cardboard sign:

The sign had a car plate number and the sum “S$133.80” written on it.

Wait, what does this mean?

According to the user, an incident that occurred in September had left the attendant feeling despondent.

Apparently, a man driving a black Lexus had gone to that particular petrol station to fill up his tank.

However, when he swiped his Shell card to make a payment, it didn’t go through for some reason.

The pump attendant didn’t notice, however, as he was talking to the driver.

Consequently, the S$133.80 that was unpaid was allegedly deducted from the pump attendant’s salary.

Except it wasn’t. 

Shell Confirms That Pump Attendant Didn’t Have to Pay $133.80 Worth of Petrol for Lexus Driver

Shell issued a statement on its website to make several clarifications, and to debunk false allegations that spread on social media.

According to Shell, the incident occurred on 18 September 2020, at 6.56pm in the evening.

Shell confirmed that the customer’s payment for refuelling was unsuccessful, adding that this happens occasionally and is mostly accidental.

“We have sought to resolve this as soon as this was brought to our attention. We have since reached all of the parties involved in this incident and brought this to a close,” they said.

Shell said that they’ve since managed to get the payment from the customer, and that their attendant, who they affectionately call Uncle Ivan, did not have to bear the cost of the transaction.

“We would like to thank members of the public for their outpouring of kindness towards our service champion, Uncle Ivan. We will also take this opportunity to review our processes in order to ensure fairness for all parties involved in such instances,” Shell said.

I guess you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Who would have known?