As gas prices spike, so do drive-offs
More are pumping without paying
With fuel prices then topping $3 a gallon, the North Bluff Road station was hemorrhaging hundreds of dollars a week in drive-offs - motorists who would fill up, then drive away without paying the tab.
The losses finally forced Fenton to institute a new, decidedly less neighborly policy."We said they had to prepay," she said. As of then, drivers had to pay up before filling up. No more paying later. No exceptions.
Ten months later, and as fickle gasoline prices push past the $4 a gallon threshold, Fenton admits that the prepay rule, while first unpopular, was the best move the station could have made for its bottom line.
"I've been prepaying, and I'm good," she said Thursday morning, when the station was charging $4.07 for a gallon of regular unleaded. "We don't have drive-offs."
Others aren't so lucky.
Area police and gas station owners last week said the number of motorists stealing gas from fueling and service stations has steadily increased in recent months, just as fuel prices surged over the $4 threshold.
Thefts have been reported across Madison and St. Clair counties, officials said, including a case last week in which an Edwardsville man was charged with stealing from three Glen Carbon stations, then selling the gas to others and turning a profit.
The trend is widespread and growing, putting more pressure on local gas station operators and franchisees, many of whom are wrestling with the same cost concerns as motorists, said Jeff Lenard, a vice president for the National Association of Convenience Stores, a trade group.
"It's very severe for owners," he said. "They're pretty much losing money on each gallon."
Lenard noted that typical gas stations only make about 1.5 cents per gallon of gas, which means that if a location sells the average amount - around 4,000 gallons a day - the profit is about $60, sometimes less when credit card fees are taken out, for a day's work.
"So when somebody drives off, they're driving off with your profits," Lenard said.
And it adds up: an estimated $134 million in fuel was pilfered from stations last year, the trade group found. Most thefts occurred just after large price spikes, when fed up consumers seem to take out frustrations with stations, even though they don't set prices and play a tiny part in the global oil trade.
That's what's happening locally, officials here said.
"There's definitely been an increase out there," said Madison County Sheriff's Department Lt. Mike Dixon, who estimated drive-offs are occurring every other day in unincorporated county areas. "It's happening all over."
Police have been making arrests, he said, but the numbers are still steadily growing.
One of the most significant so far is the Glen Carbon case, in which village police tracked several thefts to a pick-up truck driven by Brandon K. Greco, 27, of the 300 block of Thomas Terrace in Edwardsville.
Glen Carbon police Detective David Zarr said Greco for the past several weeks has targeted gas stations and filled canisters in his truck bed, then sped away.
Police zeroed in on him after closed circuit cameras captured Greco snatching fuel from three stations on Ilinois Route 159 and West Main Street in Glen Carbon between May 31 and June 8, Zarr said.
Greco, who police think sold the fuel in Venice, is now charged with four counts of felony theft under $300 and could face up to 20 years in prison. A warrant was issued Wednesday for his arrest, said State's Attorney's Office spokeswoman Shannon Goforth.
Zarr on Thursday said that since police charged Greco, they've been able to link him to other pump thefts in Collinsville, Edwardsville and Hamel. Those departments are investigating, and they expect additional cases to come to light, Zarr said.
"We're comparing notes," Zarr said. "There may be more."
What the thefts have in common
While Zarr said the Greco case in unusual (the vast majority are drive-offs are either one-time offenders or simply forgetful drivers, he said), it highlights what officials say are the common traits of more brazen fuel shoplifters.
The first is location: Most target stations in semi-rural and interstate-adjacent areas, which provide easy access and often don't have the safeguards of more urban fueling centers, Lenard said. Thieves also tend to pick pumps near exits and away from the attendants. (Some also remove their license plates and carefully plan escape routes, although there is no evidence that Greco took those steps.)
But the biggest factor - and what the pumps that Greco is charged with stealing from didn't have - is the prepay requirement.
Without that rule, Dixon said, allowing motorists to take such a expensive commodity without paying first makes the pumps ripe for plundering.
Compare that to stations that force payment first, which makes drive-offs next to impossible.
In Granite City, where most stations require prepaying, Assistant Police Chief Jeff Connor said he can't remember the last time he received a report of a pump-and-run.
"The prepay prevents that," he said last week. "It's been a while since we've heard of any."
Which begs the question, with gas costing more, why don't more stations just require credit card or cash payment before turning on the pump?
The issue, Lenard said, hinges mostly on cash-paying customers, who some operators fear won't want to make two trips inside a station - once to pay for gas and once to receive change after filling up. That inconvenience could drive customers away or seriously hurt sales of milk, bread and the other items that make convenience stores profitable.
There's also some evidence that cash-paying motorists forced to pay the attendant first tend to underestimate how much gas they need and therefore buy less, which could further harm already razor-thin profits for operators. Some simply shift business to other stations.
Dixon said that threat is one reason many stations he's talked to don't want to make prepayment mandatory.
"They are concerned to take that step and disappoint customers," he said. "They live and die by those customers."
The other, more philosophical factor is the honesty factor, Lenard said. Making people pay before pumping can be misinterpreted that store owners don't trust customers, he said.
"There's an implicit lack of trust, and that's never good when you're asking people to spend money in your store," Lenard said. "It's one more thing off the honor system, and I think that's the most unfortunate thing."
Weighing profits
But Fenton, the Collinsville station manager, said saving money in stolen gas tends to outweigh worries about perceived slights and lost store sales.
"Say I gain $100 in inside sales, but I lose $200 in drive-offs," she said during the visit last week to her store. "To me, it's not worth it."
Dixon said he hopes more stations will adopt mandatory prepayment and add surveillance cameras to curb a trend that's likely to only increase as gas prices tick higher. The petroleum retailing study credited the devices with halving the amount of gas theft last year from 2005, when it topped $300 million. (Some municipalities - including British Columbia, Kansas City, Mo., and El Paso, Texas - require prepaying, although there are no plans for such a mandate here.)
Dixon said the cameras help police keep a handle on the trend and take repeat offenders out of the gas theft racket.
"A lot of our stations have videos on the pumps, and we've been apprehending individuals," he said.
For now, operators and franchisees "are caught in the middle" amid dwindling profit margins and calls from consumers for better prices, Dixon said.
"People have to understand, during these times, they're also losing a lot of money. They're making pennies on the gallon," he said. "And every gallon stolen is money out of their profits."
Still, new driver Rebecca Weber, 16, of Shiloh, said she understands why some might feel inclined to take money away from gas stations, even if it's illegal. It's sort of predictable, said Weber, a part-time waitress and mall clerk, filling her sedan with $35 of gas at an O'Fallon Shell station Thursday afternoon.
"If people steal all kinds of things, they're going to steal this, too," she said, watching the digital dollar counter edge another dollar higher. "Gas is the next thing, if it keeps going up."
Snapshot in surges: Average area gas prices by gallon
Unleaded regular
Year ago: $3.01
Month ago: $3.90
Thursday: $4.11
Mid-grade
Year ago: $3.23
Month ago: $4.20
Thursday: $4.42
Premium
Year ago: $3.34
Month ago: $4.33
Thursday: $4.56
Diesel
Year ago: $2.86
Month ago: $4.33
Thursday: $4.77
Source: Oil Price Information Service
