By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
AN INDEPENDENT fuel retailer who oversees more than 20 sites across Victoria said his two Cranbourne stores were the worst hit by petrol drive-offs.
APCO Service Station director Peter Anderson, who owns a petrol station in both Cranbourne North and Cranbourne West, said petrol drive-offs in Cranbourne had increased considerably over the last two years.
He said drive-off at his two Cranbourne stores, one on Narre Warren Road and one on Dandenong-Hastings Road, occurred roughly three times a week – more than any of the other APCO outlets.
On average each petrol drive-off cost the business around $80, amounting to roughly $240 of lost income a week for the Cranbourne stores.
It comes as the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce announced fuel stations across the state were losing up to $20 million in revenue each year.
“It is higher than anywhere else in our network,” Mr Anderson said of his Cranbourne outlets.
“They (Cranbourne) are one of the worst.
“People fill their tank and they don’t just get $10 worth because when they do a drive-off they want to get everything they can.”
Mr Anderson said he was “infuriated” by the high level of drive-offs and was forced to cover the loss out of his own pocket.
He said the current fines for using stolen number plates were “pathetic” and urgently called for them to be increased.
APCO is a chain of independent petrol stations, with outlets throughout Victoria including Cranbourne, Geelong, Epping, Ballarat, Bairnsdale, and Mildura, among many others.
