20% less?! 31 problematic gas stations in Chongqing have been seized, unscrupulous! Add a box of oil

In recent years, some gas stations in certain regions have been exposed to have the problem of metering cheating. The problem is that gas stations manipulate gas machines to display more fuel on the panel than the actual fuel consumption, leading to consumer fraud. Recently, law enforcement officers conducted law enforcement inspections on some gas stations in Chongqing.

Chongqing: Short weight and less weight at gas stations

Unexpectedly, it was cheating through a gas dispenser

This time, law enforcement officers mainly carried out on-site law enforcement against three types of situations: installing cheating software on gas station computers, replacing metering chips, and replacing metering and control motherboards.

Huang Jian, Deputy Leader of the Product Quality Support Team of the Chongqing Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Corps: The version numbers of the two versions of the two main boards of this measurement chip are inconsistent, and we suspect that it has been modified.

Huang Jian, Deputy Leader of the Product Quality Support Team of the Chongqing Market Supervision and Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Corps: The principle of a fuel dispenser is that its motherboard can only send data to the computer end, and the computer should not transmit data to the motherboard of the fuel dispenser. Our software's ability to communicate with the fuel dispenser's motherboard proves that there is a problem with its motherboard. Now the computer can give instructions to the fuel dispenser.

After successfully connecting an external device with a cheating program to a gas dispenser, law enforcement officers replicated the process of measuring cheating at the gas station by adjusting the parameters of the backend computer, and measured the range of measurement deviation that the gas dispenser could achieve.

Xu Jie, Deputy Chief of the Chongqing Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Team: The second fuel dispenser has set the deviation value to 200 ‰ in the backend system settings.

Xu Jie, Deputy Chief of Chongqing Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Team: Yes.

Xu Jie, Deputy Chief of the Chongqing Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Team: Cheating in fuel dispenser metering is achieved through this method of reducing weight.

After on-site testing, it was found that the fuel dispenser originally equipped with an anti cheating system can adjust the error value arbitrarily through cheating software and manual control in the background. The error that should have been within ± 3 ‰ can even be adjusted to 200 ‰.

According to law enforcement officials, there are still significant difficulties in the calibration of metrological cheating.

Xu Jie, Deputy Chief of the Chongqing Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Team: With one click, the cheating function can be activated, and with one click, it can be reset. Once reset, it is a normal refueling machine. So when testing, make sure that the value obtained is within 3 ‰.

Most consumers also indicate that the problem of metering cheating at gas stations is highly covert and often difficult to detect.

Chongqing: "Discounts" and "direct discounts" are all gimmicks

Law enforcement agencies strengthen their crackdown efforts

As of now, a total of 31 problematic gas stations have been seized in Chongqing, with a cumulative sales amount of 1.24 billion yuan for refined oil products and more than 13.4 million yuan in confiscated illegal gains. During the investigation, the reporter found that problematic gas stations often use discount gimmicks to attract consumers.

When gas stations implement measurement cheating, they usually adjust the fuel dispenser measurement with an error value of about 2%. If the consumer fills up the 60 liter empty fuel tank, the amount of fuel added will be reduced by 1.2 liters. Based on the oil price of 8 yuan/liter, an additional fee of 9.6 yuan is required. In addition to infringing on consumer rights, gas stations that engage in measurement cheating often use "discounts" and "direct discounts" to attract consumers, disrupting market order and causing an impact on compliant gas stations.

The gas station investigated by the law enforcement team on that day was suspected of damaging the accuracy of measuring instruments. At present, the fuel dispenser control motherboard has been appraised by the production enterprise, and the amount of illegal profits is still being verified. Faced with conclusive evidence, the person in charge of the gas station confessed to cheating.

The Chongqing Market Supervision Bureau has currently established a special team for measuring cheating in gas stations to crack down on problematic gas stations. Through repeated consultations with fuel dispenser manufacturers, appraisal agencies, and industry associations, we have cracked down on 2 types and 12 types of measurement cheating methods, and conducted training on daily supervision and on-site law enforcement.