Caught! Chased! and Threatened!

I did a gas shop today. Pulled up like every other time to pump gas. Went inside and there wasn't a restroom so I bought a drink. Went outside to the car and started to snap a picture and the owner of the station came running out and tried to grab my camera. He was chasing me and threatening to call the police. I was near Fort Knox and dressed in a camouflage shirt and black pants. The store owner was obviously from Arabic descent. Was I threatening him in some terroristic fashion or something by taking the picture? Wow! He really freaked out. I had to leave without the required pictures and I don't even care if I don't get paid. I won't go back to get them. lol "This is my property and you can't take pictures of my store!!!!" Sheesh. I wasn't packing a bomb, just taking a picture.

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OMG what the heck????!!! That would scare the ever livin daylights out of me. I'd probably make note of it in the report too.
Sounds like a Cettie adventure. :-) I don't do GS audits as I have heard too many horror stories about things like that happening to shoppers.

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“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton
I guess I'm still much too new to understand this sort of thing.

I've been sitting here wondering why on earth someone would be so upset with you? My siblings and I grew up with a professional photographer as a father and we all got the snap-happy gene (including both my kids!) We all take some pretty odd photos....including ones of old buildings, gas stations, barns, the way shadows hit certain angles....whatever. I would never think someone taking a photo would be a problem unless they were trying to get ME in the picture (and especially if I turned up on that WalMart site!) winking smiley

He's lucky YOU didn't call the police for attempted assault.
All I could figure out later was maybe he felt threatened by others in the army base town and me an my camera just made him feel like a paranoid target. Lte's see what CoRI says about it. lol I'm about to tell them.
Ah yes, welcome to Cettieville where adventures occur on a regular basis. I did some gas station shops (but NOT those with Cori and the clandestined photos) and had the manager/fruit-loop hold me captive, the attendant who grunted like an animal and hid in the car wash on-site, not to mention a Pakistani here who called someone on the phone and chattered a mile a minute in his language when I identified myself and began doing the inspection.

Let us not forget the elderly jehovah's witness that met up with satan in the post office and ran like a track star WITHOUT her cane as she darted back to her car and peeled out.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain
CoRI just removed the shop. I didn't have to fight with them or anything so that's great. The only thing I'm out is 12 miles worth of gasoline and a nervous breakdown. I may not ever go through Radcliff, KY to even get to somewhere else again. lol (Not really, I did 4 other shops in that same area yesterday!) I'm really surprised that the shops in the military towns here don't get snapped up by military or their families as a way to pull in a few extra dollars. They could do mystery shopping anywhere they got moved to in the states. Unless they got attacked by a mad gas station owner. And someone in the military could run faster. lol

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2010 07:23PM by iblessyah@yahoo.com.
ShopUntilYouDrop Wrote:
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> iblessyah, were you perhaps eating a BBQ pork
> sandwich at the time? smiling smiley



Perhaps when he burped from the sandwich it sounded like he said "kaffir!" That can happen you know.......

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain
Just a simple point and click. lol But I was wearing a camouflage shirt and black pants at the time. And I was just a short distance from a military base in a red neck part of Kentucky. lol But I'm not a bigotted person at all. Evidently I presented a terrifying image to him somehow. Or does he have something to hideeeeeee???? lol
I was also chased and threatened by a gas station manager. He said I could not take pictures of his property. Funny, he had already signed the consent form, but decided to get mad and yell and scream anyway. He called the police. I called my MSP. The police came, saw my paperwork and his signature. laughed at him and waited around til I finished the audit. He is no longer managing that station.
My guess is he is guilty of something, and didn't want his face posted on the post office wanted list. Things like that just don't happen here, yicks, that's scary!!

Live consciously....
I did a BP once somewhere out in the middle of no where and the guy freaked out, big guy built like a football player and he's purple in the face screaming in the parking lot. He blamed my credit card for his gas pump not working. Dude! If the darn thing didn't work just put an out of order sign on it.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain
Cettie Wrote:
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> I did a BP once somewhere out in the middle of no
> where and the guy freaked out, big guy built like
> a football player and he's purple in the face
> screaming in the parking lot. He blamed my credit
> card for his gas pump not working. Dude! If the
> darn thing didn't work just put an out of order
> sign on it.


There is something with those BP managers. I've had two freak out on me. Never had a problem really with any other gas station except for those BP managers. I've had them threaten to rip up and throw out the audit forms.
That station had a sign on a room that said, "stay out!" I figured at the time it was an employee restroom. Maybe that's where he was building his bomb. I'm not usually very predjudice, but this guy set himself up for being a target.
I think OTOH, that he knew his station was out of compliance, and you were costing him his bonus. That is all it takes for some of them to "go postal." No offense to any USPS workers, it is a phrase that we all know the meaning of.

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“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2010 05:15PM by dee shops.
And those are the exact gas stations you DO NOT want to run your credit card thru.....
major issue around here for card skimming at gas stations from the owners......
What a crazy over-reaction! It seems you are alright, just upset. My trick is to get the business done, leave, cross the street, and take a photo from in the car. That takes practice, but I have a digital camera and can delete all the goofs.
I went to a gas station one time and the guy cussed me for making him get out of his recliner and ring up my purchase. My report had a rather lengthy 'comment' section.
P.S. I have a compact car, so the photos took a lot of practice!
I think that I may win the prize here. Several years back I was doing a Conoco/Phillips mystery shop that required photos to be taken covertly. I always take a picture of the overall site, and this shop was no different. But on this day, the transport truck was dropping off a load of gasoline, and the transport driver saw me taking a picture of the site. I went home (I live about 2 minutes from the station), and about 30 minutes later I get a knock on the door from an officer from my state's division of the Department of Homeland Security! He was decked out in a bulletproof vest and everything. Apparantly the transport truck driver thought that I might be involved in some act of terrorism!
I couldn't just cross the street. I needed a shot of the pump I had just used. lol But yes, vacicek, you win the prize.
A BP station was where the clerk was standing in the back of the store yelling in her native tonue to another person. Everytime I would try to say something to the clerk she would start yelling again. The only word she said I could understand was name tag. I got her on no name tag everytime I did that station. One customer just looked at me and shook his head and laughed. I finished the audit and called in and said I would not do that one again and I was not going across town to do a second one because this same woman would go to that store after she off from the one I was at. I was sure not gong to run into her again. I never went back and BP pulled out of the central part of the state two months later. That was about 6 months ago.
I'd love to do this station not too far from my house. This guy that owns the station has stolen a Lowe's shopping cart to use to haul trash and stock around the store. lol
Don't the gas station people know they may be shopped? Or is it a surprise to them?
They know the time frame with starting and ending dates. They also sign an agreement with oil company to allow this. The stations are also charged, by the oil company, to be shopped. So they know what is going on. These are reveal audits we audits taklking about. Some stations are mystery shopped also, but the station still has a known time frame.

There are some pretty good stories about what we have run into doing reveal audits with gas statons in some of the threads. I still like to do them. I pick the ones I do. I think Cetti is the one that has been chased with a shot gun and had the police called on her.
I haven't had the police called on me lately. Friday may be a different matter when I go to a station known for having a crazy manager. The MS company told me upfront and "off the record" that I could definitely bring someone else with me for this particular location. That told me volumes.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain
This is off the topic of gas stations, but still the same basic idea: has anyone been told by a Burger King manager to get off the property before they call the police?

Seriously I am starting to wonder what they have to hide. I've had three managers get all sort of irate.
Cettie, I would recommend you bring a team of "Guardian Angels" along with a S.W.A.T. team as backup.
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