“Should I?”
Today’s gas prices have many of us wishing that we could catch a break at the pump. One man says he recently caught the break of a lifetime at a Shell gas station. It could’ve saved him hundreds of dollars. But would he have gotten in trouble if he took advantage of it?
Marcus Gene (@marcusgeneforson) says he got the gas station equivalent of a bank error in his favor. “So I went to the gas station with $47, got two drinks, told them to put the rest on pump three,” he wrote in a long text overlay.
Then Gene showed viewers a photo of the pump screen.
It appears the cashier entered an extra ‘9,’ making it $437.99 worth of fuel authorized at his pump.
Then he had to decide whether to take advantage of his good fortune.
“SHOULD I!!!!” Gene wrote in a text overlay.
But in a follow-up video, Gene says he went back inside instead.
He initially asked for the remaining “change,” which he says came to $315.35 because of the mistaken amount. But before taking the money, though, Gene says he told the Shell station’s manager what had happened.
“I made it right,” Gene says, adding that he ultimately ended up with $122 worth of gas in his tank. He says station workers thanked him for not driving away and even wrote by hand on his receipt that his fuel had been paid for “in full.”
“It’s always good to do the right thing,” Gene says. As of this writing, his first video has more than 1 million views.
Can You Keep Money (Or Gas) Credited To You By Accident?
Several states treat property delivered by mistake as potentially subject to theft laws if the recipient knows of the error and deliberately keeps it.
In Pennsylvania, a person can be guilty of theft if they come into control of property they know was lost, mislaid, or delivered by mistake and, intending to deprive the owner of it, fail to take reasonable steps to return it.
Kansas is similar. Its statute also covers property lost, mislaid, or delivered by mistake when someone knows or learns who owns it, fails to take reasonable measures to return it, and intends to “permanently deprive” the owner. The law specifically says a mistake can involve the amount of property delivered.
Of course, those two laws alone don’t tell us whether Gene would’ve been charged with a crime if he pumped the full amount. The video doesn’t identify the jurisdiction, and theft statutes vary by state.
But the broader legal principle is that knowingly benefiting from someone else’s mistake can create an obligation to return the money or property.
According to Bloomberg Law, “unjust enrichment” entails benefiting at another party’s expense without paying restitution, which can include returning something wrongfully received or compensating them for the loss.
So Gene’s decision to tell the manager about the funds credited to him may not have just been ethical. Depending on where this happened, knowingly taking hundreds of dollars in fuel could have created a legal problem.
Viewers Share What They Would’ve Done
Many viewers immediately started guessing what they’d do with hundreds of dollars sitting on the pump.
“Pump your gas and ask for the remainder back,” one person said.
“Press that premium button and fill it up!!” another suggested.
Several people wanted one detail clarified first.
“Was it cash or card? Lol,” one woman asked.
Others used Gene’s story to share their own gas station mishaps.
“One time, I went to put gas [in] but noticed the pump said select fuel grade before I even inserted my card. I pretended to insert my card and then acted surprised that it didn’t ask for PIN or anything, then I just pumped it,” they admitted. “I zoomed out of there.”
Another commenter said a similar situation ended very differently.
“This happened to me once, and they called the cops,” they claimed.
Someone else who said they work at a gas station was horrified by how big the mistake was.
“As a person that works at a gas station, idek what I’d do,” they said.
Motor1 contacted Gene via TikTok direct message. We’ll be sure to update this if he responds.
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– The Motor1.com Team