The fear of being hunted down as the subject of a highly viral controversy is real, and the man who found suddenly found himself the target of the nation’s hate has lodged a police report for his family’s safety.
As these cases usually go, netizens managed to find out the identity of the driver accused of taking advantage of an elderly pump attendant at a Caltex petrol station in Tampines. On Saturday, a woman witnessed the driver of the BMW Series 5 sedan going up to a cashier insisting that a pump attendant had misunderstood his instructions and filled up a full tank worth S$135 despite being asked to fill only S$10 worth. Wanting to avoid a row, the pump attendant said that he’d pay for the excess of S$125. Satisfied, the BMW driver walked away scot-free with a full tank of petrol.
The “10 Dollar Driver”
Well, not exactly scot-free. The woman took to the Facebook page of Caltex Singapore to write about the incident, and that post went phenomenally viral over the next few days. Since the incident, online sleuths uncovered his identity and posted his personal details and pictures online, calling out for justice against the “10 Dollar Driver”.
Folks even managed to track down where his car was parked, posting pictures of the BMW car and its whereabouts.
The man in the middle of the furor himself has since broken his silence to The Straits Times, claiming that he has become the victim of “many nuisance calls, SMSes and WhatsApp messages”. One of the more amusing prank messages went viral as well.
A day after the incident, the driver filed a police report after looking at some of the vicious comments made online about him, anxious that “these people will come to (his) house”.
In the police report, which was seen by ST, the man basically repeated the same thing — he mentioned that the pump attendant heard him say “full tank” despite him telling the pump attendant only “10 dollars”. But why only S$10 worth of petrol? According to the driver’s statement, he was going to trade in his car afterwards — the driver stated that he left the petrol station after making the payment and went to an automotive trader.
“No offence was disclosed”
In a conclusion that would no doubt disappoint many, the police found no fault at all with the BMW driver, establishing that “no offence was disclosed”.
“It was a case of miscommunication between the pump attendant and the vehicle owner on the amount of petrol to be pumped,” said the police to ST.
“We have verified that the vehicle owner was due to trade in his vehicle on the same day, and would not require more than necessary fuel.”
As such, the police have also advised both parties to settle the matter amicably.
Disbelief
Despite the fact that Caltex itself has assured the public that the pump attendant would not need to fork out the S$125 and that official police investigations found nothing wrong in the end, netizens aren’t willing to let it go. The anger is now directed at the driver’s ungraciousness — he did let the pump attendant (who presumably doesn’t earn that much in the first place) settle the high cost.
Others brought up the concern that the car was found parked in Teck Whye that Saturday night — a S$10 petrol fill-up wouldn’t be enough to last a ride from the petrol kiosk in Tampines all the way to the other side of the island in the Jurong area.
