A petrol station owner has grown so frustrated with people filling up and driving off without paying that he's taken to shaming people on social media.
Gowsee Raj manages the BP Garage on Cricklade Road in Penhill and he says his business is being heavily affected by people deliberately not paying for their fuel.
After one driver allegedly stole £71 of fuel on January 29, he angrily posted CCTV images of the offending car on Facebook, warning others to be wary of it.
"It's a big problem and it's happening all the time," Gowsee said.
"But it's really hard to stop them because the police won't do anything as they say it's a civil matter.
"They often say 'they had just forgotten to pay' but 9-out-of-ten times that's not the case.
"I can request details from the DVLA but because of data protection they won't tell us."
He says that he experiences around 10-15 customers a month who will fill their tanks up and then either immediately drive off, or realise they've left their wallet/purses at home, leave their details, and then fail to return to pay.
"Sometimes they steal more than £80 worth of petrol at a time. Obviously, this isn't a lot of its just one car and one time, but when you times that by 10 or 15 each month it adds up," he said.
"It’s just so annoying because nobody can sort this issue out, it's happening at all of the petrol stations all over the country, because there's no proper system to stop it and catch people who do it."
Gowsee said he once had someone steal petrol from his station three times by driving off, but he was effectively powerless to stop it.
"Aside from the financial impact, it means that we have to spend as much time as possible watching the forecourt, even when we're serving we're trying to watch the forecourt, which we just can't do all the time," he said.
"I could put extra staff on to manage it, but realistically even if they're watching what are they going to be able to do."
Gowsee would like to see people who steal petrol in these ways to be treated more seriously by the law to prevent them from doing it again.
"Ultimately, it’s theft and it should be treated like that," he said.
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