The first 24 hours after suspected pump tampering

You suspect a dispenser at your site has been interfered with. Maybe an alarm tripped. Maybe your reconciliation finally produced a number you cannot explain. Maybe a customer mentioned two men kneeling at pump 6 last night.

What you do in the next few hours determines whether this becomes a closed case and a paid claim, or a write-off. The instinct — open the cabinet and look — is the wrong one, and it is the single most expensive mistake operators make here.

Immediately

1. Take the dispenser out of service. Bag the nozzle and shut it down in your POS. Do this first. A dispenser whose metering integrity is in question should not be selling fuel to the public — that is a measurement accuracy issue as much as a security one, and continuing to sell from it can create problems well beyond the theft.

2. Do not open the cabinet, and do not let staff open it. You will contaminate fingerprints and tool marks, you may disturb something that matters to the investigation, and you may create a safety hazard you are not equipped to assess. It is also possible that what is in there is still live. Whatever you would learn by looking, a technician will tell you within the hour anyway.

3. Do not remove or “tidy” anything. In the Palm Beach County case, a wire found hanging out of place after the incident became part of the record (CBS12). Small physical details are what investigators work from.

4. Photograph everything, from a distance. The exterior of the dispenser, the door and lock area, the surrounding pad, tire marks, anything out of place. Wide shots and close shots. Timestamped. Before anyone else arrives.

5. Call the police and file a report. Not tomorrow. A report number is what your insurer will ask for, and what makes the incident count if a regional pattern is being tracked. Say plainly that you believe the dispenser was tampered with and that fuel was taken — those words route the call differently than “theft at a gas station.”

6. Call your fuel equipment service provider. They inspect the unit, tell you what is actually there, and determine what has to happen before it can go back into service. If you bought hardening hardware through a distributor, this is the same call.

Within the first day

Pull camera footage before it rolls over. Most systems overwrite in 14 to 30 days, and some in seven. Export — do not just review — the widest window you can justify: the whole period your variance covers, not only last night. Save plate-readable approach angles specifically.

Pull the transaction and inventory records for the same window. Tank readings, dispenser totals, deliveries, and POS. Export them to files. Reports that regenerate from a live system are not evidence.

Check every other position on the site. These crews do not typically work one dispenser. In the Punta Gorda case, deputies were watching a specific location because it was being hit repeatedly (WGCU). Have your technician inspect all of them, not the one that tripped.

Notify your insurer and ask specifically what they need. Requirements vary and some policies have short notice windows.

Write down the timeline while it is fresh — who noticed what, when, and what was done. Include the nuisance alarms from previous weeks that nobody logged. That is often where the start date is.

Before it goes back in service

The dispenser stays down until a qualified technician has inspected it and confirmed it is safe and measuring correctly. Depending on your state, a unit whose metering has been interfered with may require re-verification or resealing by weights and measures before it can legally sell again. Ask your service provider what applies in your jurisdiction — do not assume, and do not put it back on because it is a busy weekend.

In the following week

Assume you are on a route. Crews that found your site workable once have no reason not to return, and several of the cases we cover involve repeat visits to the same location. Between the incident and whatever hardening you decide on, consider what you can change immediately — lighting, a temporary camera, closing specific positions overnight, a different alarm response.

Then work the full hardening checklist across all three attack surfaces, rather than fixing only the one that just cost you money.

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Print this page and put it with your incident procedures. If you run Gilbarco Encore 700 dispensers and want to talk about hardening before the next one, request a quote through your JF Petroleum branch.

The instinct when you find a tampered dispenser is to open it up and see what's going on. It's the wrong instinct, and it costs operators three things at once: the evidence, the insurance claim, and the ability to put the unit back in service cleanly. We wrote the first-24-hours checklist — who to call and in what order, what to photograph before anything moves, why the dispenser stays out of service until a qualified technician clears it, and the records to pull while they still exist. Worth reading before you need it. Does your closing shift know what to do at 2am?

https://fueltheftprevention.com/fuel-theft-news/first-24-hours-after-suspected-tampering?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fuel-theft-news

#fueltheft #cstore #lossprevention #incidentresponse

Think a pump at your station has been tampered with? Here's what to do first — and what not to touch. Getting this right protects the evidence, your claim, and your ability to reopen safely.

https://fueltheftprevention.com/fuel-theft-news/first-24-hours-after-suspected-tampering?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fuel-theft-news

Found a tampered dispenser? Don't open it. Here's the first-24-hours checklist — order of calls, what to photograph, and why the unit stays down until a tech clears it.

https://fueltheftprevention.com/fuel-theft-news/first-24-hours-after-suspected-tampering?utm_source=x&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fuel-theft-news