I went to Wawa (30320 Three Notch Rd Charlotte Hall, MD 20622) today and had the worst experience…read morewith an employee named Nicole. I pulled up to the gas pump, used tap to pay, and it went through. I stayed in my car for a few minutes because it was cold. After a short while, Nicole walked up and told me that another customer had paid fifteen dollars in cash for his gas, but it went to my pump instead. I looked at my total and saw that it had stopped at fifteen dollars, so what she said made sense.
I tried to explain that my tap-to-pay transaction went through, but she kept insisting that the gas in my car was paid for by someone else and that I had not paid anything. I told her I would finish pumping my gas and then come inside to sort it out. She told me the other customer was in a hurry. I asked her sarcastically if she really wanted me to stop in the middle of what I was doing, go inside to pay for his gas while leaving my car sitting at the pump, and then come back out to finish pumping my gas. To my surprise, she said yes, that was what she wanted me to do, again saying that the man was in a rush. She never asked if I was in a rush, even though I actually was because I needed to go pick up my daughter. I told her that I would finish pumping my gas and then come inside.
She walked away with an attitude. While I finished pumping, I checked my bank account and saw a pending charge from Wawa for the gas. I went inside to show her that I now had two pending charges, but she completely ignored what I was showing her. While I waited to hear her explanation, she was printing out the man's receipt instead. She showed me that the man had paid fifteen dollars in cash on the same pump, which I never denied, but my question was why I was charged too.
She went from saying that I never paid anything to saying that my bank was just holding the charge. I understand that banks sometimes do that, but if I had not actually paid, like she first claimed, then there should not have been any hold at all. It felt like she assumed that I had stolen the gas, and when she realized that was not the case, she tried to shift the blame onto me and said that my bank would reverse the charge later. None of this made any sense, and I told her that. She then offered to get a manager, and I agreed.
When the manager came out, I showed him my bank app, and he agreed that the situation seemed suspicious. Nicole then told the manager that the man was still waiting outside because I was being "difficult." That made me even more offended, because she never once cared about the inconvenience this caused me. She treated a mistake that was clearly made by either her or the other customer as if it were my fault. She completely disregarded me, then became upset when I stopped focusing on the other customer.
At the end of the day, this issue was not my fault. I could have easily driven off with the "free gas," but instead I stayed to try to resolve the situation. The manager told Nicole to simply add the fifteen dollars back to the other man's pump instead of trying to force me to pay for it again when it was clear that my tap-to-pay had worked because I had two charges.
I am very disappointed in this experience. I frequent this Wawa often and have never had any issues before. The way she immediately started barking orders at me and tried to guilt me into dropping what I was doing to fix an error I did not make was completely unacceptable. It was as if she convinced herself that I somehow knew another customer would pay cash for that same pump at the exact same time, and that I planned to steal fifteen dollars worth of gas. That is ridiculous.
Even when the manager admitted that the situation was strange, Nicole still never apologized. Instead, she tried to make the issue seem worse by reminding everyone that the customer was still waiting outside, as if any of this was my fault. I strongly dislike when people make everything about race, but I do wonder why she treated the other customer, who happened to be a white man, as if he were more important than me, a Black woman. I am not a confrontational person, but her behavior was completely out of line.
It is my hope that Wawa takes this situation seriously. I will likely be at this Wawa again because it is local to me. I am confident that I will not start any issue because, again, I am very laid back and non-confrontational, but I am concerned that her unprofessionalism could lead to another unpleasant encounter. I will await a follow up response to this situation will be addressed.
