The End of Pump-and-Pay Gas?

MUSKOGEE, Okla. -- With gas prices on the rise, convenience store operators say more and more people are filling up and driving away without paying, according to the Muskogee Pheonix.

"Every time gas goes up, or we have a new employee, we have drive-offs," said Angela Houston, manager of a Kum & Go store in Muskogee, Okla. "We had four drive-offs this week."

To eliminate drive-offs, more convenience stores are starting to require prepayment for gas purchases.

Nationwide, gasoline theft cost the convenience store industry an estimated $112 million, according to Jeff Lenard of the National Association of Convenience Stores in Alexandria, Va. With retailers making just pennies per gallon on the sale of gasoline, a few drive-offs can significantly erode, even wipe out, a retailer's daily gasoline profits, he said.

Drive-offs peak each year beginning in February as prices adjust for the demand of spring and summer driving.

Continued drive-offs add up. Houston said her store reports five to 10 drive-offs each week. If each drive-off equals $40 in gas, 10 per week could cost the store $400 a week or $1,200 a month, she said.

Randy Garrett, general manager of the Flying J Travel Plaza in Checotah, Okla., said requiring people to pay before filling up has almost eliminated drive-offs. Before Flying J began requiring prepay in November, drive-offs cost the store at least $1,200 month, Garrett said.

"Drive-offs have gone by the wayside," he said. "People go up to the counter and tell us how much they need (and) we turn it on for them. Or they pay at the pump with a credit card."

However, Garrett said customers got mad when the Travel Plaza started the policy. "If we see them and we know them, we'll turn the pumps on," he said.

As previously reported in Convenience Store News, Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip Corp. initiated the Pump Start Card to cut down on drive-offs. The company collects customers' driver's license numbers to issue the cards, which allow cash-paying customers to swipe their card at the pump, then go in and pay after filling up.