Inspecting gasoline pumps

Battling rising prices at the gas pump is difficult enough, but one News on 6 viewer contacted us about a gas pump that she says is ripping people off. <br/><br/>We sent News on 6 anchor Tami Marler out

Tuesday, July 5th 2005, 5:00 pm

By: News On 6

Battling rising prices at the gas pump is difficult enough, but one News on 6 viewer contacted us about a gas pump that she says is ripping people off.

We sent News on 6 anchor Tami Marler out for an inspection.

"My boyfriend was getting gas and talking on the phone and looked down and noticed the numbers had kept on going, pulled the nozzle out of the gas tank and noticed that it was still going." Emilee Ciena says they went into the store and told the clerk, who refunded five dollars of their money. They came back to pump five two more times over the next month and the same thing happened.

She says she complained again, and then took matters into her own hands by shooting some home video of the pump. "It shows my son holding the gas nozzle in front of the numbers as the numbers continued to roll. We could have stood there forever and it would have rolled forever. But it's slow enough that you won't catch it if you blink. If you go inside, you pay with a credit card, you pay in a hurry, you're not gonna see it."

Ciena sent the videotape to us and we contacted Fiesta Mart's corporate office, where they said they'd not heard of the complaint. By the time the News on 6 had arrived at 81st and Mingo, someone was already working on the pump.

"That's five gallons right there." Inspector Clayton Wyse with the state Corporation Commission has responded to a complaint at this Fiesta Mart's pump five within the last several weeks and it fell within compliance, but while we were there, it did exactly what Ciena complained it had been doing to her.

The culprit? A faulty valve, which was immediately replaced. The big lesson here is that those little stickers on every gas pump in the state, means that someone like Clayton Wyse is looking out for consumers and he's just a phone call away if you have a complaint.

23 inspectors like Clayton Wise check about 50,000 pumps statewide, twice a year.