Revealing – and extremely worrying – are the data of the research of the National Technical University of Athens on the fuel purchase in Attica brought to light by Kathimerini.

According to the data, gas stations with “tampered with” pumps (which deliver to the consumer smaller quantities than what he pays for) constitute the 27% of all the gas stations of Attica, that is 300 gas stations.

The quantities that they deliver to their customers to be deficient by 10% while in some cases, this percentage reaches up to 24%.

In fact, one is observed chronic increase and strengthening of delinquency in recent years both in the number of gas stations and in short deliveries.

According to the data, short deliveries of fuel have increased by 30% in the last three years.

How much consumers are losing with the “teased” pump method

Consumers are not unsuspecting of this theft, which often takes place in front of their eyes, but they are completely unprotected and unable to find their way, even in cases where they are surprised to find that the gas station owner has put more liters of gasoline than the capacity of the tank of their car.

Even if we assume that the gas stations in the rest of Greece are perfectly legal and that only 300 are in violation, with average annual sales per infringing station of 2,500 metric tons, consumers are losing annually 120 million euros.

For every additional 50 offending gas stations, consumers lose €20 million and for every 500 metric ton change in offending gas station sales, they lose another €24 million.