We
are surrounded with thugs and it usually takes courage to overcome the pesky
ways they try to fool you. One of the most recent encounters I had was
at a petrol pump near Kalina West. It’s located opposite the University of
Mumbai and they have not one but the entire crew completely broke and corrupt.
I
reached there as I was low on fuel as the nearest next option was 10KM’s away.
I was warned by my friend and mentor that this petrol station had thugs but as
you now, experience is the best teacher I “thought‘’ that maybe I would be
lucky this time and queued up to fill in fuel in my vehicle. I have a dual fuel
system that supports both CNG and Petrol, so I first queued up for CNG and got
it sorted. The tank was up with fuel but you also require petrol to ignite the
engine and I was pretty low on that so decided to fill the same at the same
station.
I
queued up for petrol and after a couple of vehicles I got in. The attendant
asked me as to how much fuel was supposed to be filled and I gestured it to be
worth Rs. 500/-.
I
moved out from the driver’s seat and moved towards the petrol vending machine.
It took me merely 20 secs to reach the machine and the attendant shows me the counter
set at 500/- and asking me to pay. I was amazed at the speed at which the
petrol was filled. I knew that the car was dried out on the petrol reserves and
may be the indicator would not reflect unless I put in a substantial amount. I
asked him once again that did he really fill in because its virtually impossible
to fill in approximately 7 litres of petrol in 10 secs or lesser with the kind
of nozzle he was using.
Assuming
and believing in his “YES”, I paid him the cash. What happened now, is that
while removing the nozzle from the car he again pushed the pump to pump in
petrol worth Rs. 84/-. I was shocked to realize that someone would just pump in
free petrol in my car. Alarms started ringing and it was confirmed that the
first 500 never went in. I asked him again and he told me which was affirmed by
his co-cheat colleague that he did fill in. I asked him to prove the same and
he started blabbering that we did it and showed you the counter which had reset
and multiple excuses which were insane. He accused me that the car tank-meter
was faulty and petrol was actually put-in and it wasn’t showing up.
I
could make it out easily that they were posing a story. I refused to move the
car and asked them to remove the entire petrol off the tank. They challenged me
by saying its impossible and they didn’t cheat me. Reluctant as ever for the
first time, against a set of 10, I stood there and demanded the petrol to be
removed at a cost that I would repay double the amount of petrol they could
remove. I knew my tank had dried out and it was impossible. A few points that I
remember were:
- He never showed me or my co-passenger the counter when he started filling in, which is supposed to be at 0
- Its impossible to fill in petrol worth Rs. 500/- in a matter of time where the driver moves out of his seat to the other side of the vehicle
- He confirmed with his innocent friend standing besides vending other vehicles that he actually filled it. The time taken by his friend to confirm the claim
- Biggest of all : He put in petrol worth Rs. 84/- to get his karma in place.
Finally, he had to give up given the amount of people flocking in at the scene and he then filled in petrol worth Rs. 500/-.
The fuel meter rose happily and it gave me utmost pleasure to win over such thugs.
So Mumbai, and all over India, people reading my blogs, please make sure that you are safe and dont let go off your hard earned money to thugs like these.
Remember, there was no violence in this entire episode. It’s easy to get violent in such situations, but the objective is supposed to prove them wrong and get your claims, not to beat someone because it won’t help anyone.
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