Imagine this: You’re traveling for the holidays and you pull into a gas station to fill up. The stop goes smoothly. But a few miles down the road, your phone chimes. Your bank says you’ve been charged $100 for gasoline you definitely didn’t buy.

According to some drivers, this nightmare theft scenario isn’t fiction. And thieves may only need a common carpentry screw.

Motor1 spotted a viral video by TikToker “Megatron the Inventor.” They shared footage of a Shell pump with a sheetrock screw wedged into the door flap that closes behind the fuel nozzle. The journalists found other instances of similar gas pump tampering.

A Redditor based in Phoenix posted a photo of “a screw jammed at the bottom of the mechanism where the pump goes back into and sits after pumping gas.” The screw prevented the cradle from clicking into place and kept the pump from resetting. They added, “Getting gas at Fry’s gas station and I saw this on 2 pumps.”

How the alleged scam works

The internet’s suspicion is simple: Thieves use a carpentry screw and a screwdriver to rig a pump so the nozzle won’t click back into place after you fill your tank. The transaction remains open. They wait nearby for a distracted driver to buy gas and drive off without noticing anything wrong. Then they pull up, turn the nozzle back on, and steal gasoline on the previous driver’s credit card.

Does this actually happen? Motor1 points out that no drivers have taken to the internet to admit they fell for the scam. Maybe thieves aren’t running up large enough bills for victims to notice. That said, multiple drivers have shared photos of suspicious screws driven into pumps. Something’s clearly amiss.

If you see a gas pump that appears tampered with, tell an employee and avoid that pump. Problems can range from a carpentry screw that prevents the pump from resetting to a temporary card skimmer over the slot.

You can see Megatron’s original TikTok video embedded below: