Spending a penny...

archangel

archangel

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...is it only me but I have noticed more and more incidences of the petrol pumps adding a penny to the total by the time I get to the cash desk...that's to say I put twenty pounds of fuel in the tank and when I go to pay the cash desk shows twenty pounds and a penny...I have even went out to check the pump and indeed it has moved by a penny..I have started mentioning this to the cashiers and so far they are all agreeing that it is becoming more common...:confused:
 
It's just your hands getting shaky and your reflexes slowing down with advancing age ,just stop the pump at £19.99
 
Quite a few filling stations down here have a saucer beside the till. The reasoning is that those who manage an exact £? do nowt, those who get a penny or 2 under drop the copper in the saucer and those who dribble a little use the coppers in the saucer. Seems to work well, although the majority of people seem to use their debit cards to pay rather than cash!
 
I've stopped bothering trying to get round numbers and just fill the tank then pay by card. It's nice not knowing how much I'm spending on fuel!
 
I must admit, I saw the thread title and my first thought was: "Christ. ..how many user IDs has Scrivens got?!" :lol:
 
viv1969 said:
I must admit, I saw the thread title and my first thought was: "Christ. ..how many user IDs has Scrivens got?!" :LOL:
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Went boat fishing at Whitby on Friday, spent a penny over the side of the boat, my mate said he would wait until we docked, cost him 40 pence for a pee at the local latrines.

Pee`ing over the side of the boat into the north sea was far cheaper.
 
It depends on how you shake when you've finished.
 
And why do petrol stations do that final .9 pence thing anyway? Can't it be rounded off to the nearest penny? I guess it's to make you think that it's not too bad at £1.15 p when in actual fact, it's really £1.16p.

Anyway, I haven't owned or driven a car in five years so it is a bit of a moot point with me. :oops: :$ :D
 
fracster said:
Went boat fishing at Whitby on Friday, spent a penny over the side of the boat, my mate said he would wait until we docked, cost him 40 pence for a pee at the local latrines.

Pee`ing over the side of the boat into the north sea was far cheaper.
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When I went sea fishing the skipper did point out the number of people who drowned with their flies open:)
 
archangel said:
.is it only me but I have noticed more and more incidences of the petrol pumps adding a penny to the total
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There is more than one around here, usually "local independents" that when you put the nozzle back into the pump, it jumps that extra penny.
even when your finger is nowhere near the trigger!
fracster said:
Pee`ing over the side of the boat into the north sea was far cheaper.
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Every little helps :thumbs:

Ian D J said:
And why do petrol stations do that final .9 pence thing anyway?
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That's a pet hate of mine, if you buy (exactly) anything less than multiples of 10 litres, you end up with a total that you cannot pay for with legal tender.
I thought that in itself was illegal.
 
If I need a washer and can't find one, I drill a hole in a penny or tuppence. Cheaper than buying washers!
 
Nod said:
If I need a washer and can't find one, I drill a hole in a penny or tuppence. Cheaper than buying washers!
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I believe that defacing coins of the realm is an offence (it certainly used to be) :p
 
I believe I CGAFF!!! Maybe I should start collecting 1 and 2 cent coins when we're away. They'll be even cheaper washers!
 
Just fill the car up till full, sorted.

Ok, I have a fuel card with work and don't pay for my fuel but still, when I had to pay for it I always just filled it up till the pump 'clicked' and pay'd whatever.
 
I think it's to do with the age of the pump.

I've often gone for £50.00 only to find out I've gone for £50.01 :naughty:
 
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MartynK said:
Why don't more pumps let you enter the amount (money or fuel) you require?
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In the US a lot of the stations want you to prepay the amount before you can fill up to stop driveaways. My argument is I want to fill the tank...
 
PaulF said:
Just fill the car up till full, sorted.

Ok, I have a fuel card with work and don't pay for my fuel but still, when I had to pay for it I always just filled it up till the pump 'clicked' and pay'd whatever.
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Same here....just not fuel card.
I just fill up...hand the receipt to my MD...take the cash :-)
 
Byker28i said:
In the US a lot of the stations want you to prepay the amount before you can fill up to stop driveaways. My argument is I want to fill the tank...
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In Iceland, lots of the fuel stations are unmanned. You put your card in, set the maximum amount you want to spend, set the fuel flowing (with the clip), get back into the warm car and wait for the fuel to stop, either because you've reached the set limit or the tank's full. You only get charged for the fuel you actually take, so if you know you have a 100 litre tank and fuel's £1.20/litre (can't remember the exchange rate!) and the tank's almost empty, you can set the max to £120 and you'll get a full tank but if you're skint and just need a tenner to get you home, set it to a tenner and you won't go overdrawn! Once you've finished, stick your card back in and you get a receipt for what you've used. My only slight gripe with the system is that it's awkward setting the clip for continuous flow with thick gloves on (and bloody cold without thick gloves on, making it equally awkward!)
 
Nod said:
In Iceland, lots of the fuel stations are unmanned. You put your card in, set the maximum amount you want to spend
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I know ASDA do this but I didn't realise that Iceland had started selling fuel too

:p
 
Cobra said:
That's a pet hate of mine, if you buy (exactly) anything less than multiples of 10 litres, you end up with a total that you cannot pay for with legal tender.
I thought that in itself was illegal.
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If that was illegal, then Sainsburys selling cheese for (say) £8.79 per kilo would also be illegal.
 
viv1969 said:
I just fill up...hand the receipt to my MD...take the cash :-)
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I had a friend who had his petrol paid for by his employer, and he always bought it using plastic, but he still always filled up 'exact' amounts like £30 or £40. I asked him why, and he said it didn't really cost him any time at the pump, but it saved him loads of time adding up his expense claim.
 
StewartR said:
I had a friend who had his petrol paid for by his employer, and he always bought it using plastic, but he still always filled up 'exact' amounts like £30 or £40. I asked him why, and he said it didn't really cost him any time at the pump, but it saved him loads of time adding up his expense claim.
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I can see his point but mine doesn't go by way of expense claim. I just fork over the receipt and am given the cash.
If it's something like 59.32 I get 60 quid. That simple.
 
I hope you are declaring that extra unearned income. ;)
 
I would donate the extra to charity and do the gift-aid thing.
 
StewartR said:
If that was illegal, then Sainsburys selling cheese for (say) £8.79 per kilo would also be illegal.
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No because that is an exact figure, you can buy an exact kilo and pay £8.79.
You however cannot pay for an exact liter at £112.9P
 
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Pretty hard to measure an EXACT litre anyway!. Besides, isn't the minimum sale usually 2 litres?
 
Nod said:
Pretty hard to measure an EXACT litre anyway!. Besides, isn't the minimum sale usually 2 litres?
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Cobra's question still stands, how would you then pay 225.8p from money/change about your person? Answer, you cant. You can either pay £2.25 or £2.26, therefore is it legal to charge such a (112.9) price.
 
Nod said:
Pretty hard to measure an EXACT litre anyway!. Besides, isn't the minimum sale usually 2 litres?
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As Keith @DorsetDude has pointed out. It's not until you buy 10L that you can pay with coins of the realm and yet you can fill a 5L can
 
If, for instance, the price of petrol is 110.9p, and you (try to) dispense exactly 1 litre, the cost shown will be 111.00p The reasoning for this (apart from making fuel appear cheaper of course) is because no matter how careful you are, you will never dispense only the litre…a dribble or so will always follow when you’ve let go of the trigger.

As the price will not flip from £1.10 to £1.11 until a full litre has been dispensed, you’ll be getting more than 000.01p worth of petrol in that final dribble.

The pricing is legal because they are taking what is seen as reasonable steps to prevent loss of revenue.
 
viv1969 said:
The pricing is legal because they are taking what is seen as reasonable steps to prevent loss of revenue.
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Well even if it is legal, ( and it shouldn't be ) on Those grounds, it's certainly immoral. Why aren't they honest about it and just advertise it as the full price, as they are in fact selling it higher than the advertised price. Which again I thought was illegal.
 
Cobra said:
Well even if it is legal, ( and it shouldn't be ) on Those grounds, it's certainly immoral. Why aren't they honest about it and just advertise it as the full price, as they are in fact selling it higher than the advertised price. Which again I thought was illegal.
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Because even if they priced at, say, 111.00p per litre, and you stopped the pump bang on 111.00p, you'd still be getting your dribble over and above the litre :-)
 
viv1969 said:
Because even if they priced at, say, 111.00p per litre, and you stopped the pump bang on 111.00p, you'd still be getting your dribble over and above the litre :-)
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Also, I'd be willing to bet that the pumps round the volume *down* to the nearest 0.01 litre and then round the price *down* to the nearest penny, so they can't possibly be accused of overcharging.

So if the pump registers 1.00 litres, the amount you have pumped will be somewhere between 1.0000 and 1.0099 litres; and if the price is 110.9 pence per litre you'll only be charged £1.10. I assume. The second part of this is testable, of course.
 
Any W&M inspectors around? Chances are that the pumps aren't allowed to overread the fuel they deliver so we probably get a tiny bit extra for our 110.9 (or whatever the price of petrol is at this moment!) Given a choice between a fuel station charging 110.9/l and one next door charging 111/l, would anyone really bother turning round to save 10p (based on a large [100l] tank)? Maybe for 5p/l difference but not for 0.1!!!
 
viv1969 said:
you'd still be getting your dribble over and above the litre :)
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Well that'll be on the customers side then, we can't have that can we? :p

Nod said:
Any W&M inspectors around? Chances are that the pumps aren't allowed to overread the fuel they deliver
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Many years ago when I was driving a fuel tanker, the spirit was always "dipped delivery" ( You can't really compress spirit though a delivery pump now can you? :D )
But the gas oil, 28sec. Oil and Derv was meter delivered, from the truck.

We were regularly inspected / tested by W&M,
they would get quite stroppy even if the meter read too much in favour of the customer.
IIRC we were allowed a couple of percent, either way.
But that was quite a few years ago now, so may have changed.
 
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