Sebastian Solski, a resident of Bolesławiec County, claims that he was cheated. According to the driver, more fuel was pumped into his car’s gas tank than it can hold. On 7 November last year, Sebastian Solski refuelled his car at the Carrefour petrol station in Zgorzelec. The man wanted to fill the tank completely. He was surprised when the dispenser’s meter indicated that 34.24 litres of gas had been pumped. “How can that much be pumped into a tank with a capacity of 35 litres?” the driver wonders. The man believes that the meter on the gas dispenser “measured” more fuel than was actually pumped, and that he lost around PLN 20 on this refuelling. “I used to refuel at this station quite often, two or three times a week for several months, and there had never been any problems before,” Solski says angrily.
The driver claims that a maximum of around 28 litres of gas can be pumped into his car’s tank. “Three weeks earlier [przed feralnym tankowaniem – przyp. red.] I had the gas installation in my car inspected. No faults were found. I have inspections several times a year—not only when required, but more often, for my own safety. A 35-litre tank can be filled to 80%. I received this information from the company that installs gas tanks in cars. I have documents to prove it,” he assures us. Sebastian Solski filed a complaint after seeing the dispenser reading. A petrol-station security employee made a note and assured him that the matter would be resolved within a week. “No one contacted me by phone during that week,” the driver claims.
At the beginning of December, the man went shopping at the Carrefour store in Zgorzelec. There, at the market’s information desk, he learned that an inspection had been carried out at the petrol station and had found no technical irregularities. The inspection was conducted by an employee of Orlen Centrum Serwisowania Sp. z o.o. Sebastian Solski was also told that the matter would be reconsidered. The driver sought assistance from the District Consumer Ombudsman in Bolesławiec. He also notified the Provincial Trade Inspection Inspectorate in Wrocław and the District Office of Measures in Jelenia Góra.
At the end of last year, the resident of Bolesławiec County again went to the information desk at the Zgorzelec hypermarket. After this visit, the man received correspondence from Marek Mosna, the manager of Carrefour in Zgorzelec. The letter stated, among other things, that the equipment at the station was functioning properly and that the required technical inspections were being carried out on time. Faults, however, most often occur in the gas installations themselves. According to Marek Mosna, the multivalve may have closed too late while the car was being refuelled. In addition, as Marek Mosna wrote in the correspondence, it is not possible to check precisely how this valve operates during a technical inspection of a car’s gas installation. The correspondence also refers to an inspection of the gas meters at the Carrefour petrol station in Zgorzelec, carried out on 5 January this year by an employee of the District Office of Measures in Jelenia Góra. The inspection found no exceedance of the permissible error limit for measuring the gas dispensed. The summary stated that this was the first case in which a station customer had complained about the operation of the gas dispensers and that, consequently, the demand for compensation was unfounded.
Sebastian Solski believes that it was the gas meter on the dispenser that was not working properly. “I expect them to admit their mistake and apologise. Otherwise, they will be cheats in my eyes. As for the multivalve in my car, it is functioning properly. If it were not, the situation would recur. All the institutions I contacted agreed that I was right. A tank cannot be filled above 80% of its capacity. The multivalve prevents the gas from being filled beyond the permitted level. This is the so-called safety level, approximately 20% below the tank’s estimated capacity. This is the opinion I received in writing from the District Office of Measures in Jelenia Góra,” the driver emphasises. The man points out that the technical inspection of the gas dispensers took place approximately three weeks after the unfortunate refuelling. In the driver’s opinion, the fault could have been fixed by then.
(MZ information)