Video shows Laval Petro-Canada pump skimming pennies from clients
An online video showing a Petro-Canada pumping station in Laval charging clients even when they weren't fuelling their car has gone viral, with more than one million views since it was posted Oct. 6.
Saint-Eustache resident Dylan Fisher took two videos of the same pump driving up his tab when he wasn't getting gas from it — one on Oct. 5 and another on Oct. 6.
The Petro-Canada station where the video was taken is on the service road of Highway 440 and 100th Avenue in Laval.
Fisher said that only Monday, Oct. 17 did he see that the pump had been fixed.
He said after filming the second video an employee came out to confront him, thinking he was doing something to the pump.
When he told her what was happening, he says, "She basically flipped out at us."
"I was trying to explain to her that we told her manager the day before [about the malfunction] and I didn't understand how the pump was still in function for customers to use," Fisher told CBC News.
"If it was the other way around, if it was giving gas without charging the customer, they would shut the pump down immediately for repairs. But since it was contrary, they didn't care."
Wants more public awareness
Fisher said he spends 60 to 75 hours per week on the road for his job installing orange cones, marking detours and shutting down lanes for road work all over Quebec.
His company has a fuel contract with Petro-Canada, spending what he estimates is thousands of dollars per week at the petroleum company's stations.
Fisher said he's seen this kind of skimming at the pump happen before, from a video someone took at an Esso station.
"At least now, more people will be aware of it. So now when people go to get gas, they know that when they let off the lever, if they wait five to 10 seconds, they'll see if it keeps charging," Fisher said.
The manager of the Laval Petro-Canada station refused CBC's request for comment.
Petro-Canada's parent company, Suncor, has not yet replied to CBC's inquiries.
