- If it won’t scan, it’s free, right?
Although gas prices aren’t as ridiculously high as they were at one point during the pandemic, fuel isn’t exactly cheap. Haven’t you ever dreamed of filling your tank without paying a dime?
Well, one Nebraska woman made that dream come true. And now she’s going to pay for it.
Dawn Thompson was arrested on March 6. The 45-year-old Lincoln resident stands accused of illegally pumping a massive amount of gasoline for free from a local gas station.
Thompson allegedly discovered a way to glitch the station’s pumps using nothing but her rewards cards. The confused machines allowed her to then pump thousands of gallons of gas without paying a dime.
Not only did she scam the gas station herself, but she also allowed others to get “discounted” gas with her card. Of course, she asked them to pay her for using the card, even though it didn’t cost her anything.
The gas station eventually noticed the theft, however, and contacted the police. Following a months-long investigation, Thompson has now been arrested and is waiting for her trial.
A Bug in the System
The defrauded gas station in this case is a Pump and Pantry station located at the intersection of W O Street and Sun Valley Boulevard in Lincoln, Nebraska. According to a court affidavit, Thompson is believed to have started stealing fuel on November 13, 2022.
Earlier that month, the station’s fuel pumps had received a software update to improve their operations. The update, however, introduced a serious bug in the system.
If anyone swiped their Pump and Pantry rewards card through the machine twice, the system would glitch out and enter demo mode. In this state, the pump would allow the user to freely pump gas to showcase its features.
It’s unknown how Thompson learned about the card swipe glitch. It’s perfectly possible that she stumbled upon it by accident after the machine didn’t read her card on the first swipe.
It could also be that there was something special about Thompson’s card. You see, she received it as a car debt payment so perhaps there was something shady going on from the start.
Anyway, Thompson was now presented with a chance to get free gas. Opportunity can make the thief — and in this case, it did.
Thousands of Gallons of Gas
Over the next seven months, Thompson is alleged to have made liberal use of the gas pumps’ software vulnerability.
The thing is, even though the machine’s programming went haywire, the pumps still recorded which card had been used on them. This fact would later come to bite Thompson in the butt as the pumps kept a tally of her fraudulent fill-ups.
Thompson’s card was used 510 times — sometimes multiple times a day — to activate the pumps. The police estimate she pumped more than 7,400 gallons of gasoline worth $27,800.
Thompson is also alleged to have let another woman use her rewards card. When the police approached the woman, however, she claimed to have no idea what she was doing was illegal.
She said that Thompson had said she was able to get “discounted fuel” with her card. She would let her friend use the card to fill her vehicle as long as she paid the cheaper price back to Thompson, whose card was supposedly billed for the gas.
Of course, Thompson never paid anything for the fuel so it was all pure profit. The police believe the woman paid Thompson roughly $500 for $700 worth of fuel across 10 uses.
Over the period of fraudulent use, Thompson’s rewards card gained virtually no reward points. That makes sense — the system never registered a legitimate fuel purchase so it didn’t dole out any points.
Slow Investigation
On June 1, 2023, the fuel pumps’ software bug was fixed. Coincidentally, Thompson appears to have sold her rewards card in the same month.
Oh well, nothing good lasts forever. She got thousands of dollars’ worth of free fuel and got away scot-free.
Or so she thought. On October 20, 2023, Pump and Pantry’s loss prevention manager called Lincoln Police after he was informed about unusual activity with a certain rewards card.
Indeed, as we mentioned earlier, Pump and Pantry’s system recorded every single time Thompson or someone else used her card. Although we doubt the card was registered under Thompson’s name, the cops could check surveillance camera footage to see Thompson’s car and registration number.
With the number in hand, they could then discover her identity and address. That took some time, though, as Thompson wasn’t arrested until March 6 of this year.
She has paid her $7,500 bail and is not currently in jail. We’re not sure what kind of punishment she might be facing, but she is scheduled for an April 11 court hearing.