Computer Glitch Allows Station To Sell Gas For $1.10 A Gallon In Wilmington

May 16, 2011 6:39 AM

WILMINGTON (CBS) — A costly glitch at a gas station allowed drivers to fill up for $1.10 a gallon.

The mistake happened at a Vallero station in Wilmington Sunday between the hours of 8:30 to 11:30 a.m.

The manager of the station said a computer glitch caused the error that allowed customers to take advantage of the discounted fuel for three hours as word quickly spread around the area.

“I was shocked that it even happened,” said Aureliano Galvez who filled up his tank for less.

Kenny Nguyen, whose family owns the gas station, said that 8,000 gallons of gas were sold during glitch resulting in a loss of $21,000.

Computer Glitch Allows Station To Sell Gas For $1.10 A Gallon In Wilmington

http://losangelesforme.com/2011/05/computer-glitch-allows-for-sale-of-gas-for-1-10-a-gallon-at-wilmington-station/ Computer Glitch Allows For Sale Of Gas For $1.10 A Gallon At Wilmington Station | Los Angeles for Me

[...] A costly glitch at a gas station allowed drivers to fill up on gas for $1.10 a gallon. More from: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com… [...]
Marissa

That so called $21G loss was really profits they could have made.

Seraphim0

Must be nice in your dreamworld. gas Stations make PENNIES on the gallon for gas. The main profit comes from the sale of convenience items from inside the store.

Sean

Sorry but you are wrong, we work for the city. gas stations make anywhere between 0.60 and 1$ profit per gallon. So yes the station lost money, but only about 12,000$ which they can recuperate in less than a month

T

Yeah, but if a company doesn’t make profits they can’t stay open, can they?

Bridget

Poor Mr. Nguyen.

Daryl

Trust me at $1.10 per gallon he still made money, just not as much as he always does.

Josh

Um….no. He didn’t. Oil is roughly $100 a barrel right now. a barrel is 55 gallons, assuming that it’s all usable as gasoline (which it’s not), that’s still almost $2 a gallon, plus about $.40 per gallon in taxes and the wholesalers make about 30% profit, so that’s roughly 70 cents, you’re a little over $3 right there.
jim

WRONG NUMBER there…Oil is sold by the 42 gallon barrel not 55
Albert911emt

You’re nuts. How can they have made a profit at $1.10 when it probably costs the station $3.95 or 3.99 a gallon to buy the gas in the first place?
Ethernet

BEEP BEEP, wrong answer dork. What part of he lost 21k don’t you get? Gas stations make NO money on gas, and alot of times its a loos leader, they make money on the pop and candy bar that you grab on the way through

RALPH

AH THE 70′S AND 80′S ALL OVER AGAIN, THE OWNER JUST HAD A FLASHBACK MOMENT AND THOUGHT IT WAS COOL. WAY TO GO DUD!!
diosdado1001

Andale, buey.
The 21000 was profit, not lose. too bad they found out too soon.

Ice

Yup, that suolhd defo do the trick!
etnffpua

3EX12f tsiivoylvfhm

http://kcal Sweets

Lupita, moron is spelled m-o-r-o-n. Looks like you’re the MORAN!!! HA!!!
Zygo

Lupita: It was obvious to most that Bridget’s comment was tongue-in-cheek. You not only didn’t get that but you used the forum to insult her. As Sweets noted I would also like to note that before you insult others’ intelligence at least don’t expose your own lack of with misspellings.

Stevie

Don’t forget run on sentences

rancho

If you all think that he gets 4 dollars of profit for each gallon, you are being naive. The wholesale price of gas is about $3.21 per gallon this week. That is what Mr. Nguyen paid for it. The other dollar between 3.21 and the 4 something he normally sells it for, is excise taxes; both federal (38 cents) and state (18 cents), sales taxes (9.75%) and a little for profit. So he lost at least 2.60 per gallon (3.21 – 1.10 plus taxes) -money he paid to someone else… plus his few cents of profit per gallon.. remember he is a small business man not an oil company

Zygo

Excellent points… Good post
Creatin’ In Cali

Remember this is a business… He’ll just write off his losses and make it back when he files his taxes for the loss. Thanks everyone for confirming his loss. He won’t get audited now.

http://rickdday.wordpress.com rickdday

His merchant account will just charge back the credit card accounts with the correct amount and get away with it.
RsubG

Gas was 1.09 when I got my license in Oct 2001. Then it went down to .99 now it’s come full circle!

rmsbl4

I remember paying 25cts a gal.

Larry

Merchants are not allowed to modify the amount paid, any attempt to rebill the credit accounts the proper amount would be credit card fraud.
Ladylady

Is it so bad to have gas at $1.10? I remember my dad handing a man at t he pump a 10, said “fill it up” and had enough change to get my brother and I a candy bar at the register… The good ol’ days.
mark silvers

HA HA
Camille

HI FIVE!!!!!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
daniel

Actually some inacuracies, #1 to explin it you get by-products and gas out of a barrel of crude, however if they completely break it down the gas ends up being more gallons than the crude, this is because crude is heavier. this was definely a loss the wholesale price for gas is more than 2 bucks right now, and that’s in like 100,000 gallon quantities.
Anyways normally they more gallons total product out of the barrel than cude, and that includes gallons of diesel and other things.
my $.02
Daniel
Brandie Lynn Mostrom

For shame to all those people who stole gas from this gas station at 1.10 a gallon and not a one went in, and with honesty in their heart, informed this man that there might be an error on his gas pump. I don’t like paying $4 a gallon eiher, but lets not punish the little guy because oil speculators and big oil decide they need to make a lot of money. It’s pathetic that so many people in a community stole from one of their own.
DMV

How can you say that he doesn’t make profit off of it when it was $21,000 he lost. Really? I thought someone just said they don’t make that much off the sale of gas, that it is the items inside the store that sales? $21,000 for gas sure sounds like making money to me. Also, a loss means just that a loss on the profit margin he would’ve gained. Economics 101 peeps.

dougeducate

How can you say it was profit? The loss was $21000. Meaning the negative difference between his investment (what he paid) and his revenue (what he sold it for) was $21000. That is very simplified, but I would imagine you could follow it.
Ethernet

Wrong dork. Fail Eco 101 ROFLMAO!!

EricV

1 Barrel of Crude is 110 Gallons not 55 or 40, Reason is when they put crude in barrels at the turn of the century all they had was water barrels to put the crude in from the well head. Its still 110 gallons to a Barrel even to this day.

Now yeilds; of all the products that come from crude 100% is usable,
Jet Fuel, Diesel, Kerosine come off first Gasoline in Varous grades come off next its about 40% of the barrel is gasoline, Then come oils, Greases in the refining process the very last thing they make is road paving materials and roofing materials. What is charged, There is a refining, and delivery charge added to the price of a gallon of gas 70 Cents and 50 Cents a gallon is the respective charges. Another thing that is keeping the price of gas high is the fact that BP, Shell, cheveron and others drill and cap the wells hardly any of the wells that have been drilled in the last 5 years are production wells. And the practice of taking gasoline inventories and shipping it to europe and other countreis to get a far higer price than in the US is keeping the price of gas alot higer than normal.
alex

People really need to take an economics class. Seriously. He had $21,000 of lost revenue. That is a LOSS. That lost revenue is WAY more than the profits he would of made if the glitch never happened.
poorman

Gosh, I wonder how we’d feel if one day our company or boss comes and tell us that our salery just got adjusted to -$21,000/yr….ok, that’s is just too much of an analogy..maybe it’s ok with the folks who make hundreds of thousands $$$/yr, but not for the blue collar folks who has to support his family, home mortgages ….feel for the man, people. He’s just one of the gas station owners who also has to pay out a lot of other payments beside taxes, insurance & pay-roll …A loss in revenue impacts every thing …from company biz trickles down to each individual worker. This gas station is just a small biz owned by mom & pop folks.
If it was one of BP owned stations, I would have been very happy for the people who “earned” the $1.10/gallon of gas (in the 3-4 hrs) ‘cuz to the BP, $21K is a tiny tiny grain of sand on a beach.
seriously

i love reading all these comments. who cares….look at all the lucky customers that got a great price on a tank of gas. woo hoo…i wish there was a pc glitch in my ares
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[...] to KCAL 9, it took hours for the on-duty gas station attendant to notice the glitch (didn’t the line-up [...]
http://ev-olution.org/?p=20327 Computer glitch causes station to sell 8,000 gallons of $1.10 gas » ev-olution.org

[...] that lead to the station dispensing some 8,000 gallons of gas at just $1.10 each.According to KCAL 9, it took hours for the on-duty gas station attendant to notice the glitch (didn’t the line-up [...]
http://www.hybridsevolution.com/2011/05/computer-glitch-causes-gas-station-to-sell-8000-gallons-at-1-10-each/ Computer glitch causes gas station to sell 8,000 gallons at $1.10 each | Hybrids Evolution

[...] that lead to the station dispensing some 8,000 gallons of gas at just $1.10 each. According to KCAL 9, it took hours for the on-duty gas station attendant to notice the glitch (didn't the line-up of [...]
http://onlyarticles.net/computer-glitch-causes-gas-station-to-sell-8000-gallons-at-1-10/ Computer glitch causes gas station to sell 8,000 gallons at $1.10

[...] to KCAL 9, it took hours for the on-duty gas station attendant to notice the glitch (didn’t the line-up [...]