Comments on: Save Money on Gas – How I Saved 11.9% at the Pump With a Sneaky Trick

By: Saving 15 Cents a Gallon on Gas - Plus Doubling Our Savings at the Pump : Money Smart Life

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:33:06 +0000

[...] about grocery store chains that have installed gas stations alongside their stores and offer a discount on gas based on the amount of money you spend on groceries. You show them your grocery receipt and [...]

By: Save Money on Gas - Small, Easy Gas Saving Tips Take a Big Bite Out of High Gas Prices from Financial Planning Guide

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:56:32 +0000

[...] discounts on gas tied to purchases you make in their store. ; Save your receipt and it could save you several cents per gallon ;on [...]

By: Save Money on Gas - Small, Easy Gas Saving Tips Take a Big Bite Out of High Gas Prices : Money Smart Life

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:20:56 +0000

[...] discounts on gas tied to purchases you make in their store. Save your receipt and it could save you several cents per gallon on [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:43:36 +0000

TJS, sorry to have lost you as a reader. Perhaps you could keep me “on probation” in your feed reader and see if I can redeem myself : ) Hopefully I addressed your concern in the comments above.

As I mentioned, I listed three steps to this gas savings. You could always follow the first two and then submit your own receipt for the third step. Your savings wouldn’t be as high but you could still save money with the double day discount.

By: TJS

TJS — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:31:53 +0000

Had enjoyed many of your posts, this one a read a week ago and it has bothered me since, but now could not help but comment on the fact that blurring the lines of ethics and money is a slippery slope. The result of your actions is the grocery store gave a rebate to someone who was not entitled to it (at the level). I have canceled by “feed” to this blog simply because of this post. Best of luck.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:59:30 +0000

mgm and bpr, have you been talking with my wife : ) After I told her about the receipt she said the same thing.

Basically, the gas rebate system has a hole in it, they don’t have a way to verify the receipt you give them is actually your receipt. I imagine they’ll fix this someday by having people swipe their frequent shopper card to automatically calculate the discount.

For now they depend on the honor system to police the rebates. Was this the most honorable way to save money on gas, arguably not, but in the heat of the money saving moment it seemed like a good idea.

There are three steps to this gas savings, you could always follow the first two and then submit your own receipt for the third step. Your savings wouldn’t be as high but you could still save money with the double day discount.

Thanks for keeping me honest!

By: bpr

bpr — Tue, 20 May 2008 04:33:41 +0000

Hmmm… but do you not think that maybe you were defrauding the grocery store? After all, the person who discarded their receipt may not have qualified for the discount. You may have used a non-qualified receipt to get cash back from the store. Seems like it could be unethical to get cash back on money you didn’t spend.

By: mgm

mgm — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:50:00 +0000

Regardless of whether it was stealing or not, it’s unethical to get a rebate on something you didn’t pay for.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:09:51 +0000

mik, the person before me didn’t take advantage of the cash back offer. They left their receipt at the pump and drove off.

This gas station is right on a main road and anyone can fill up there, whether they shopped at the grocery store or not. A lot of people stop there for gas and don’t need their receipt since they don’t qualify for the rebate.

Some people stick their receipt in their wallet and others just leave it at the pump when they drive away. Kind of a long answer to your question but no, I wasn’t stealing their receipt, they had discarded it.

By: mik

mik — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:04:00 +0000

I understand the need to save but wasn’t it stealing using the other person’s receipt? you took something you didn’t belong to you.