A gas station owner in Osoyoos, B.C., is apologizing and offering to cover costs of repairs after a diesel/gas mix-up on Jan. 30.
Gagandeep Singh Atwal, the owner of the Shell gas station on 92 Avenue, posted an open letter on the Town of Osoyoos’ community Facebook page to explain what happened.
Atwal said a fuel delivery driver “erroneously” dumped one compartment of regular gas into the diesel tank and one compartment of diesel into the regular tank.
Drivers who fuelled up on Saturday, Jan. 30, between 3 p.m and 7 p.m. may have been affected, he said.
“We stopped selling both regular gas and diesel to customers when we got to know about the driver’s error,” Atwal wrote.
“We shut down both diesel and regular gas pumps and placed signs at our station informing the customers that we are not able to sell certain grades of fuel.”
Atwal said the mixed fuel was emptied out of the tanks via a vacuum truck and the new, correct fuel was put in both of the tanks the following day.
The underground pipes were also cleaned out and the fuel filters on the pumps were changed, he said.
Atwal asked all affected customers to visit the gas station with the invoice of costs incurred to fix their vehicles and a copy of their gas receipt from when they filled up at the gas station.
“Our staff has been informed to take the copies of receipts from customers, their name, phone number, and license plate of the vehicle involved,” he wrote.
“We will match the receipts with our POS system and security cameras to ensure the validity of the claim and reimburse our customers hopefully within one week.”
Atwal added that two drivers have already been compensated in full.
“This is purely a human error made by the delivery driver and us as a business and our fuel supplier took the necessary steps once the issue was caught and tried our level best to minimize the damage,” he wrote.
“We are committed to stand by our customers and will take care of their repair costs incurred due to this error.”
“Once again, please accept our apology for this error and thank you for your understanding.”
Lukas Gedminas with Osoyoos Mechanics said he worked on one of the damaged vehicles that required a vacuum pump to flush the gas tank of diesel.
He said the bill was over $450.
Atwal has not responded to a request for comment, but an employee at the gas station confirmed the validity of the Facebook post.
There’s been an outpouring of support for Atwal below his post on the community Facebook page, as local residents praised his transparency and offer to reimburse customers for repairs.