He said he was made to feel like a criminal and detained by staff, who refused to acknowledge an Eftpos statement showing a deduction of $30.
Mr Raman said after pre-paying $30 the dollar figures on the pump were "jumping around" and when he stopped the pump it came up at $42.
However, when he went to pay the extra $12 he was told by the same woman cashier he had paid a few minutes earlier that he had not paid the original $30 and owed the station $42.
Neither the cashier nor the manager would accept the statement he obtained from an eftpos machine at the station or view in-store CCTV footage to prove he had paid. He was told he could not go to a bank to get a statement. At this point he rang his wife to get further proof from his bank, paid the outstanding $12 in cash and left.
A short time later, his wife arrived at the station after making a dash from work in Henderson with a text message from the ASB bank showing a $30 payment made to Mobil.
After missing some calls from the station on Thursday night, Mr Raman, a 57-year-old former Fiji policeman, returned to the service station yesterday, where a woman manager said they had viewed the camera footage which showed he had paid for the petrol. He also received an apology and an offer of $30 from the station operator, Ravin Shankar, who told the Weekend Herald he was not authorised to comment.
"They were just playing a game," said Mr Raman, who planned to talk to a lawyer about his legal options. "They were behaving in a totally unprofessional way."
Mobil issued a statement saying it was disappointing to hear about a negative customer service experience at a Mobil branded site. "Mobil works with all Mobil-branded site operators to encourage them to provide a high standard of service on site and to always try to provide a good experience for all customers."
Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin said legally there was not a lot Mr Raman could do about such a small sum of money, but the humiliation and embarrassment should be worth a lot more.
She had never heard of a dispute like that of Mr Raman's for pre-paid petrol.
AA spokesman Mark Stockdale said the motoring body had not received feedback about pre-paid petrol, which was a useful option to combat drive-off petrol theft and allowed motorists to fill up after hours when service stations were unmanned.
