Fuel Oil Deliveries; Metering???

[More Amps]

It was certainly heating oil that was going short as head office only opened an investigation after some commercial customers complained that their set deliveries weren't lasting as long as usual. Police involvement was only avoided due to head office not wanting it all over the papers, and in the absence of solid proof it would have been hard to get a guilty verdict.

 

[bricol]

Close to 30 yrs ago I worked in a Shell forecourt.

Company car/van drivers would quite often fill a can, then the car, or even on odd occasions, the car infront/behind too - I'm guessing driven by the other half of the fuel car holder.
When you swiped the car, you were prompted for the reg number and mileage - not everyone needed/wanted it filling in.

A lady colleague of mine would write "plus jerry can/car reg no." on the ticket printed out, with a smile and a polite "thank-you" as she handed the card and paperwork back . . .

I'm not sure anyone ever checked those tickets - I would guess the company just paid for the fuel card bills.

 

[James1979]

Close to 30 yrs ago I worked in a Shell forecourt.

Company car/van drivers would quite often fill a can, then the car, or even on odd occasions, the car infront/behind too - I'm guessing driven by the other half of the fuel car holder.
When you swiped the car, you were prompted for the reg number and mileage - not everyone needed/wanted it filling in.

A lady colleague of mine would write "plus jerry can/car reg no." on the ticket printed out, with a smile and a polite "thank-you" as she handed the card and paperwork back . . .

I'm not sure anyone ever checked those tickets - I would guess the company just paid for the fuel card bills.

Good for her.

It’s those idiots that then moan when the outfit they work for goes under.

 

[m_c]

If you have a fleet of vehicles, it's quite easy to notice any vehicles with higher than normal fuel usage.
You might not think 5L of fuel per tank is noticeable, but even on something with a 100Litre tank, that's 5% extra of max volume, but if they're doing that every half tank, it's 10% extra, which is a noticeable hit on fuel economy figures.
And with an ever increasing number of fleets using telematics, the cause of high fuel usage can quite quickly be identified.

I've had a regional manager question me over one of their lorries before, as the fuel economy had dropped 1mpg over the space of a month. I just asked if he had personally witnessed the trail of white smoke it left as it drew out the yard every morning.
I've also had to do fuel economy tests, to establish if a vehicle really does have a fuelling issue, but when the vehicle is apparently using twice the average amount of fuel for that vehicle type, you really don't need to check much.

 

[bricol]

The problem with "staff theft" they just always get caught in the end - they get away with for so long - they just get complacent.

The funny ones:

1. Go to tow one of my own broken down vans in - going thru the cab to find the towing eye - behold I find three 10ltr cans fuel of derv in the cab. Someone ended up walking home that day and it was not me.

2. Go to a member of staffs house - on a Sunday morning - to sort his 16year old sons moped out - wiring fault. Not being paid - this is a goodwill job for a member of staff and there son. I am in the shed looking at the moped and it suddenly dawns on me I surrounded by my own property - tons of tons of consumables in big packs. Shelves and shelves of it - floor to ceiling. Nobody gets the moped fixed that day and I loose my temper. This chap has an ebay shop - I kid you not and I am stocking it FOC.

3. I have even has employees miss me out the chain and steal off other employees.

4. But the worst one of all - was the little old lady in the office - with a bit of clever accounting she took large quantities of money for a short period - till she was caught - she also was doing the same to local village hall/football club she was doing the books for. She went to prison - she even offered to pay me the money back if I would drop the charges. I ended up going civil and putting a charge on her bungalow to get my money back. He son had to buy it off me - when she died. Yes buy the part of the bungalow I owned...

My solicitor advises me to never challange them over theft - never call it theft. Call it - “violating company policy” or a “cash handling violation”.

Never dismiss them and withhold wages at severance. Always go thru the due process...

No 2 !!! Jeez! Must have been doing it a while to forget who it was being stolen from!

Not new though - I worked for a BIG multi-national right at the beginning of my career - engineering boss was escorted off site and had to leave his nice company Merc behind . . . the story was it had a funny rattle due to all the tools in the boot . . . seems every machine going out the door with a full tool kit, actually had several full, expensive, tool kits assigned to it . . . must have been running a car boot stall or something.

 

[premmington]

No 2 !!! Jeez! Must have been doing it a while to forget who it was being stolen from!

Not new though - I worked for a BIG multi-national right at the beginning of my career - engineering boss was escorted off site and had to leave his nice company Merc behind . . . the story was it had a funny rattle due to all the tools in the boot . . . seems every machine going out the door with a full tool kit, actually had several full, expensive, tool kits assigned to it . . . must have been running a car boot stall or something.

If you got one of my vans and you wanna go to the dump or move a sofa about I really don't care. I am not too bothered about little home work jobs and odds and sods. I get this - it is sort of a perk of the job.

Most decent lads will ask anyway - "can I have a few?" - "can I borrow". All decent bosses will just say yes.

I don't get too grumpy for an odd bit of time knicked either as long as the work has got done.

But it is - out and out long term theft that gets me. They always get caught and loose the jobs.

 

[More Amps]

Anyone remember Barclaycard? Back in the day they used to be one of the biggest spenders on advertising TV/Radio/Press/Posters etc... We secured a big contract with them (it was big to us as we were just a small start-up) and the lady in charge came to see us to discuss a follow-up. As the meeting had gone very well and finished at lunchtime, we offered her lunch out. We were making small talk and I asked her how many people worked in her department. She replied that there were only three of them at the moment...as the previous bunch had all been sacked. Apparently the MD was furious when he noticed that in December the staff car park was suddenly full of estate cars and hire vans - as well as trucks from various booze wholesalers! It turned out that all the advertising buyers were suggesting to all the sales people at TV stations, newspapers, magazines etc that a Christmas present would be gratefully received and result in big orders for advertising...

 

[bricol]

If you got one of my vans and you wanna go to the dump or move a sofa about I really don't care. I am not too bothered about little home work jobs and odds and sods. I get this - it is sort of a perk of the job.

Most decent lads will ask anyway - "can I have a few?" - "can I borrow". All decent bosses will just say yes.

I don't get too grumpy for an odd bit of time knicked either as long as the work has got done.

But it is - out and out long term theft that gets me. They always get caught and loose the jobs.

Yep, that used to be the case at the previous place - and I as most appreciative, and vans came back with fuel or more from when I borrowed it. You asked and if it wasn't needed for work, you could.

I never got the ones who complained there was no fuel in it when they wanted to borrow it . . . put some fuel in it then!

Good place - works manager helped me crane my sisters Calibra up on welding table so I could drop the rear subframe and repair a rather large section of missing rear structure . . .

 

[Robotstar5]

No 2 !!! Jeez! Must have been doing it a while to forget who it was being stolen from!

Not new though - I worked for a BIG multi-national right at the beginning of my career - engineering boss was escorted off site and had to leave his nice company Merc behind . . . the story was it had a funny rattle due to all the tools in the boot . . . seems every machine going out the door with a full tool kit, actually had several full, expensive, tool kits assigned to it . . . must have been running a car boot stall or something.

A few from Rover at Longbridge.

A guy regularly took a gallon oil can out, all legal with note etc., one day he had to nip back in for something he'd forgotten so left the can next to the security hut, it started raining so the security guy put it inside to keep it dry, it felt heavy so he looked inside, it full to the brim with new spark plugs! bloke lost his job and got a criminal record.

Guy got caught taking an alternator out, usual process was call in civil police and get a search warrant, they went to his house and found one wall of his garage was stacked floor to ceiling with new alternators, turns out it was a mental issue so the company sent a van to recover the alternators, got the guy psychiatric help and he kept his job.

Guy who worked in the internal garage/workshop got caught taking out a set of numberplates he'd made up for a neighbour, probably would have cost a fiver to have made up, he lost his job of 20 years and got a criminal record.

 

[mtt.tr]

I think I know of someone pinching diesel at our place,I'm confident he is because he lost his last job over it, he's so proud he tell me all this.

We also had someone caught pinching parts, now our parts are specific to us, only we sell our brand no one else. Even when vans get broken into the thiefs know that.

 

[Trevorleach]

If you get a new lorry in the yard then it’s easy. Fill the lorry up and put 20l in a can. Every time.

The mpg is never seen to go up and of anyone bothers to check then it appears a tad more thirsty than others but 20l Jerry can per refill isn’t anything to get concerned about in lorry terms anyway.

Probably would never notice.

Thing is, you have to keep doing it. If their cars were using less that what they were nicking and there was a surplus that’s when it gets noticed and people start getting into trouble.

Twenty odd years ago all the drivers were at it.
This was pre telematics and all the trucks ran ptos, so almost impossuble to stop.
They would fill up on the road then stop in their favourite layby to hide the can, then collect it later in their car.
Remember one driver had his cans nicked from the layby, he was livid!

 

[8ob]

A few from Rover at Longbridge.
Guy who worked in the internal garage/workshop got caught taking he lost his job of 20 years and got a criminal record.

You get guys like this that actually think it’s part of the perks, must have saved Rover a tidy few quid in redundancy pay.
Every cloud and all that

Bob

 

[cheb]

Another source of fuel is dropping rather more than needed when making sure there's no water or other contaminants in the bottom of a storage tank.

 

[James1979]

On the flip side, guy I know was a service engineer before he retired. The works vehicle he brought home was diesel. He said they were obsessed with people nicking fuel to the point you had to account for every drop.

It was so bad that he refused to run diesel cars for home just in case they had an idea he was nicking it.

Very odd outfit. He’s told me a few stories along those lines.

 

[More Amps]

A few from Rover at Longbridge.

A guy regularly took a gallon oil can out, all legal with note etc., one day he had to nip back in for something he'd forgotten so left the can next to the security hut, it started raining so the security guy put it inside to keep it dry, it felt heavy so he looked inside, it full to the brim with new spark plugs! bloke lost his job and got a criminal record.

Guy got caught taking an alternator out, usual process was call in civil police and get a search warrant, they went to his house and found one wall of his garage was stacked floor to ceiling with new alternators, turns out it was a mental issue so the company sent a van to recover the alternators, got the guy psychiatric help and he kept his job.

Guy who worked in the internal garage/workshop got caught taking out a set of numberplates he'd made up for a neighbour, probably would have cost a fiver to have made up, he lost his job of 20 years and got a criminal record.

Anyone else thinking of that Johnny Cash song "One piece at a time"

 

[armalites]

One of our oil delivery drivers told a story of a driver that used to deliver to farm where the diesel tank had a drip, there was a bucket underneath. He used to empty the contents of the bucket into a can and take it away. The farm wasn't overly concerned but just annoyed that he didn't ask. This went on for a while and they then starting putting some silage additive in the bucket, apparently it was a similar colour and quite acidic. Driver ended up having to get the pump rebuilt on his tractor.

I knew another chap who told a story about when he worked in a bus depot, he happened to arrive early and see some unsavouries had run a pipe under the fence and into the tank of a bus and were pumping into a lorry. He managed to stick the pipe into a barrel of rain water before he rang the police

 

[Mick Annick]

A few from Rover at Longbridge.

Guy got caught taking an alternator out, usual process was call in civil police and get a search warrant, they went to his house and found one wall of his garage was stacked floor to ceiling with new alternators, turns out it was a mental issue so the company sent a van to recover the alternators, got the guy psychiatric help and he kept his job.

I had a tip-off that one of my guys was bringing his car into the workshop on a Saturday and swapping parts off new cars onto it. Got security involved and it turned out not a lot of his car was original. He confessed he had a few more bits at home, so we got the port police (We were based in the docks) involved, his garage was stuffed with new parts, few of which he’d ever use or sell, like scores of handbrake cables

 

[James1979]

I dont know if it still goes on, but RMC Roadstone used to dye their diesel orange to deter theft and provide evidence when it did happen.

A few other outfits used to do it as well.

You can buy diesel dye online and you can dye dyed diesel so I am not sure it's that effective.

 

[Blobber]

Remember hand written petrol receipts from the filling stations? the nice lady at our local station always asked me what amount I wanted on the receipt and being self employed it helped a bit at the end of the year!

 

[bricol]

Remember hand written petrol receipts from the filling stations? the nice lady at our local station always asked me what amount I wanted on the receipt and being self employed it helped a bit at the end of the year!

I had a guy have an absolute fit as I wouldn't give him a blank hand written one in addition to the printed one I'd just handed him from the till printer . . .

June, the lady who used to write "plus can" on fuel card receipts, would write every single item on company card receipts . . . "fuel, 20 Marlboro, Mayfair . . . "