Investigators were shocked to discover a petrol station at Co Nhue Road in Hanoi was shorting customers by 0.75 litres of petrol for every 10 sold.
The cheating petrol station located right at a busy road
The economic section of the Hanoi Department of Police and investigators from Hanoi’s Department of Science & Technology inspected the petrol station which is managed by Hoang Xuan Loc Private Company on July 27.
Currently, the price of petrol is VND15,990 ($0.84) per litre. The petrol station was cheating customers out of VND1,199 ($0.06) for each litre of petrol.
Nguyen The Loc, Director of the Hoang Xuan Loc Private Company confessed that the company had used an electronic chip which controls the amount of petrol sold to customers, allowing them to skim customers for a profit. The company had been doing this since May 2010.
The chip, which was installed on one of their 3 fuel dispensers, connected with a computer placed in an operation office of the petrol station.
The sophisticated device displayed a different amount of fuel than was actually pumped, allowing the company to cheat customers. There was a wire which could be quickly and easily removed to allow it to pump the proper amount. When authorities arrived, they tried to remove the wire, something that had worked in the past.
This time, it didn’t work. The investigators are looking into how much money the company actually made off of customers by cheating them.
The fuel dispenser with an electronic chip
The wire which connected the chip with the operating system was placed underground
The computer which controlled the amount of petrol dispensed
