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Petrol theft expected to rise in Australia as police call for more CCTV and prepaid pumps
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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I'm trying to think of the last time I actually filled up and paid at a fuel station, it's probably a decade ago. Stations with no pay at pump facility typically make you come into the shop and prepay.
Most servos in Queensland are post-paid, I think Costco is the only one I've seen recently with a pre-pay enforcement.
I work at a servo in Australia and I don't think anyone out of the last 10,000 customers has prepaid. It's extremely rare to do and normally only when you are broke. Even then they'll just be more careful pumping normally.
Australian here, Melbourne specifically. I have never had to prepay. It's always fill up then go in to pay.
CostCo
last time for me was in some hickville station in Missouri.
They specifically turned it off for us because we were from out of state, and they don't trust out of state people to pay... so they wanted us to walk in and pay cash.
Fun fact. they no longer get to accept visa.
I remember distinctly. It was at a station that didn't offer pay-at-the-pump, years after it had become the norm.
I filled up as usual, drove off as usual, and realized several minutes later that I hadn't gone in and paid.
Coz servos make most of their money selling you junk in store.
The picture is interesting. Do Aussies have pumps with separate handles for each grade? Stateside we have one handle and buttons on the console to choose.
This is the norm around the globe.
Once again, the US is the outlier and thinks it's the norm.
You have the unholy petrol cloaca???
Thanks for making me google cloaca, you goddamn cloaca.
There are plenty of “one grade per handle” pumps state side as well.
Different handles is the norm as far as I know. Not sure I've ever seen one with buttons to change with a single handle.
Here in the US my experience for the most part has been one handle for gasoline with buttons for each grade and sometimes a separate handle for diesel. I think places with one handle dispensing multiple octanes have a minimum volume (usually a couple gallons) to make sure your gas has at least the octane you selected even if there was lower octane gas left in the line.
Do Aussies have pumps with separate handles for each grade?
Yes.
Diesel (with a high flow button) is increasingly on each bowser too, so we couldn't have a selector switch.
I haven't seen a post-pay pump in the states since the early 90s.