Is it really illegal?

[Bhelliom]

Charges in gas theft


GRENOBLE, France (AP) - A court has convicted 17 people for stealing thousands of litres of gasoline from a faulty pump at a service station in southeastern France, officials said Thursday.

The 17 drivers had their driving licences suspended for a month, the office said. Two other people whose licences already were suspended were fined $300 US in Wednesday's ruling.

A total of 224 people pumped out at least 30,000 litres of gasoline between November 2002 and February 2003 after two drivers noticed free gasoline pouring out when they inserted their credit cards into the machine.

One man visited the faulty pump at the service station in Colombe 18 times in a week and another woman took about 960 litres of gasoline in 33 visits.

The 205 other gasoline cheats, all identified by their credit cards, were not tried because they visited the pump fewer than 10 times and paid back the money owed, the court said.




Really. Is it technically illegal if you made the effort to pay for the gas and just weren't charged for it? They were just taking advantage of a screwup with the gas station. I would think it was the gas stations own stupid fault for not noticing it and turning off the pump.


PS I've actually had work to do this week for a change so I haven't been around much to post, But I am working on Nicks story (and by working on I mean every once in a while thinking about it, so it could be a while) and will post the whole thing once its done.