This confused me:
The couple say they were even left unable to visit their son, who lives more than 200 miles away in London, out of fear that they would be left stranded without fuel if petrol stations refused to serve them.
I had a look, and Blackburn does have a train station, and I seem to remember London having one or two, what prevented them from taking the train?
An easier way to prevent fuel theft is to require prepayment or a credit card authorisation to activate the pump.
It is the problem of the gas stations, not the consumer. If there is so much gasoline theft, have the customers pay upfront (this is common practice in Belgium), and if you don’t want to implement that, just shut up? BTW, if you drive an EV, you don’t have this issue, so perhaps a good moment to switch.
First off, I live in the USA and I haven't seen a gas station where you could pump without paying first in at least 20 years. I'm currently living in one of the more rural areas of the country and every pump has a card reader so you can pay right at the pump without even going inside. I sometimes see old stickers on the pumps that point out that leaving without paying is a crime, but I cannot imagine how anyone could actually do this. The pumps will not dispense fuel until you pay.
This tells me that the whole purpose of the set up described in the article as a way for this security company to scam people. The technology to prevent driving off without paying is decades old. There's no reason for this situation to exist.
Second...
The “stress and anxiety” from the situation led to the couple paying DCBL the debt in order to “just move on from it”.
This perfectly describes the business model of debt collection companies. Harass people until they pay whether they really owe any money or not.
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