Consumer Recourse

Letter to the Willamette Week (1/8/08):
I have a possible story for the "Rogue of the week" segment. The story highlights the plight of consumers when faced with unscrupulous business owners.
The story involves an incident that happened to my wife while filling up our diesel car at a local service station. The night of the first big snowstorm (12/16/08) my wife went to a station at 98th and SE Division (205 Gas). After asking for $14 worth of diesel, the attendant mistakenly put regular unleaded in the tank. The attendant is the one who pointed the mistake out to my wife. [As a side note, the manager and then the owner told us that any costs for repairs that they end up paying will come out of the attendant’s paycheck (is this legal?). The attendant in fact was the only person who showed any measure of human compassion or responsibility. He repeatedly approached my wife to say he as sorry, a move that seemed to enrage the station manager who repeatedly told him not to talk with us]. My wife, not knowing what to do, called me at home with my infant daughter and I did some research online and determined the wisest thing to do would be to ask for a letter from the manager describing the mistake and signed, and then have the car towed to have the fuel lines and tank flushed. Not doing so would risk up to $5000 in damage to our fuel injectors. However, the manager refused any responsibility, and even refused (until much later) to refund the cost of the fuel put into the tank. He requested that my wife wait outside in the snow for a tow truck, which she refused to do as the towing company we contacted said it could be up to 4 hours before he arrived and it was cold and snowing outside.
I packed my 9 month old infant daughter and drove to the station to help my wife. Upon arrival I asked the station manager politely to accept responsibility and give us a receipt describing the incident so that we would have something to show our insurance company. The manager was extremely rude, and walked away from me while I made this request. I brought a video camera with me and began to film in order to have some sort of evidence that the incident had occurred, but unfortunately the camera was out of battery power and I put it away. Much to my later embarrassment, I did call the manager an asshole, but I was beginning to get very angry over the trouble we were forced to go through and the unwillingness of the manager to do the right thing.
There are a lot of other details to the story, including a visit by the police (who was very sympathetic to our plight but was powerless to do anything), a man who (until the police arrived) would not identify himself violently beating our car (when the police arrived; he identified himself as Sal Musa, the station owner), and later threats by phone by the station owner to have me arrested.
It appears that they may get away with it as the cost for towing and fuel line/tank flushing was below our insurance deductible. Small claims court has a minimum that the costs of these repairs do not meet, so we are stuck paying for the repairs out of pocket.
Since Oregon does not allow individuals to pump their own gas, this sort of event (I am told by authorities as well as fuel distributors I've talked to) happens quite frequently. If you would like to hear the details, please fee free to call me. My cell number is 503-xxx-xxxx. Please help us obtain some measure of justice as well as warn other diesel vehicle owners out there of the risks of this sort of thing happening to them! My wife is a local physician and I am an engineer...we are not the sort of people looking for people to sue! In fact, the repair bill is not of any real concern; rather we are outraged that this sort of thing can occur without any real consequences.
Thank you.
Matthew Hickey

Letter to Space Age Fuels(1/8/08):
Please be informed that I am submitting a version of the following story to KATU news, Mayor Sam Adams office, and the Willamette Week if Mr. Sal Musa refuses to pay the costs of our car repair and tow (a total of $240). Though this incident involves an independently owned station, your business will be named as the distributor of the fuel and may be contacted by news organizations or state agencies. I am notifying you as a courtesy, and I hope that your organization will take measures to ensure that your retailers (independent or otherwise) treat their customers with respect and take responsibility for mistakes such as this. I have previously spoken with Mr. Dave Madu at Space Age about this incident.

The story highlights the plight of consumers when faced with unscrupulous business owners, as well as the need for the State of Oregon to better regulate the size of the dispensers for gasoline vs. diesel to prevent this sort of thing from happening at all (in other words; if the nozzle won't fit, it won't be an issue!).

The story involves an incident that happened to my wife while filling up our diesel VW Passat at a local service station. The night of the first big snowstorm (12/16/08) my wife went to a station at 98th and SE Division (205 Gas). After asking for $14 worth of diesel, the attendant mistakenly put regular unleaded in the tank. The attendant is the one who pointed the mistake out to my wife. [As a side note, the manager and then the owner told us that any costs for repairs that they end up paying will come out of the attendant’s paycheck (is this legal?). The attendant in fact was the only person who showed any measure of human compassion or responsibility. He repeatedly approached my wife to say he as sorry, a move that seemed to enrage the station manager who repeatedly told him not to talk with us]. My wife, not knowing what to do, called me at home with my infant daughter and I did some research online and determined the wisest thing to do would be to ask for a letter from the manager describing the mistake and signed, and then have the car towed to have the fuel lines and tank flushed. Not doing so would risk up to $5000 in damage to our fuel injectors. However, the manager refused any responsibility, and even refused (until much later) to refund the cost of the fuel put into the tank. He requested that my wife wait outside in the snow for a tow truck, which she refused to do as the towing company we contacted said it could be up to 4 hours before he arrived and it was cold and snowing outside.

I packed my 9 month old infant daughter and drove to the station to help my wife. Upon arrival I asked the station manager politely to accept responsibility and give us a receipt describing the incident so that we would have something to show our insurance company. The manager was extremely rude, and walked away from me while I made this request. The whole time he was on his cell phone with whom I can only assume was the station owner. I brought a video camera with me and began to film in order to have some sort of evidence that the incident had occurred, but unfortunately the camera was out of battery power and I put it away. Much to my later embarrassment, I did call the manager a nasty word, but in my defense I was very angry over the trouble we were forced to go through as well as the unwillingness of the manager to do the right thing.

There are a lot of other details to the story, including a visit by a police officer (Officer Bret Burton; who was very sympathetic to our plight but was powerless to do anything), a man who suddenly arrived and who refused repeated requests to identify himself and was violently beating our car (when the officer arrived; he identified himself as Sal Musa, the station owner), and later threats by phone by Mr. Musa to have me arrested for brandishing a walking stick from the drivers seat of my car. In retrospect, I am somewhat embarrassed about grabbing the walking stick, but in my defense both my wife and I were terrified.

It appears that Mr. Musa may get away with this sort of behavior, as the cost for towing and fuel line/tank flushing was below our insurance deductible. My wife and I may in fact be stuck paying for the repairs out of pocket. We are still awaiting a final decision from our insurance. Our final option is to file a claim in small-claims court, but my understanding is that there is a $750 minimum. If we decide to go this route we will have to put a value on the time we spent dealing with this issue.

Since Oregon does not allow consumers to pump their own fuel, this sort of event (I am told by authorities as well as fuel distributors I've talked to) happens quite frequently.

I ask that you please help us obtain some measure of justice by encouraging Mr. Musa to pay the nominal costs of the repairs.

My wife is a local physician and I am an engineer...we are not the sort of people looking for people to sue! In fact, the repair bill is really not the main issue here; rather, we are outraged that this sort of thing can occur without any real consequences and desire compensation to assist Mr. Musa in understanding that treating his customers in this way has consequences. Please help him understand that his customers are to be respected and treated with civility.

Thank you.
Matthew Hickey