Man Buys A Gallon Of Gas At Shell. Then He Pumps It Into A One-Gallon Jug Of Poland Spring To Test If He Got His Money’s Worth

"Pay attention when you buy a gallon of gas..."

Man buys a gallon of gas at Shell. Then he pumps it into a one-gallon jug of Poland Spring to test if he got his money’s worth

Photo by: yakatt4ck & engin akyurt

JT Wilson

By: JT Wilson

Oct 9, at 10:00pm ET

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Two friends set out to prove a Shell station was shorting them on fuel by pumping exactly one gallon of gas into an empty one-gallon Poland Spring water jug. The pump’s own display says they got the full gallon they paid for, but the gas stopped well short of the top of the bottle, so they took the jug inside to complain.

Marco (@yakatt4ck), whose TikTok channel runs to jokes, pranks and confrontations in public, posted the 10-second clip with a caption “Scammed again,” and it has so far drawn more than 1.6 million views. “We’re gonna be seeing if a gallon of gas is really a gallon of gas,” one of the pair says outside Shell station, jug in hand.

The camera cuts to the pump as the numbers roll to a stop at $4.73 and 1.000 gallons, then to the jug, filled to just below its shoulders. “But it’s not a gallon, though,” one of them says. “This is a gallon.”

It isn’t the first time he has done this test. A clip on his account from September, captioned “does that look like a gallon?,” has more than 266,000 views. In a follow-up to the Shell video posted a day later, one of the pair holds up the jug and tells the clerk, “I have a problem,” and the clerk answers that they are not supposed to put gas in it before ordering them out: “Get out of the store!”

What The Pump Is Allowed To Do

Gas pumps are tested by state and local weights-and-measures inspectors, “typically, at least once per year,” according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which writes the standards they use and defines the gallon as “231 cubic inches.” Inspectors pump five gallons into a certified test measure, called a prover, and compare it with the display.

A pump in service is allowed to be off by “1 cubic inch plus 1 cubic inch per indicated gallon,” NIST says, or six cubic inches either way on a five-gallon test. That works out to about two cubic inches on a single gallon, a little over one fluid ounce, which is much less than the gap at the top of the jug in the video appears to be. Pumps that pass get a dated sticker from the state, and NIST tells drivers with doubts to contact their state weights-and-measures office.

Some viewers blamed the heat. “Gas expands or sum like that (idk what I’m talking about),” wrote thingg111. Warm fuel does take up more room, but NIST says underground tanks keep gasoline close to the industry’s reference temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, “so, you’ll get what you pay for at the pump, regardless of the weather outside.” Expansion would also make a gallon look bigger in the jug, not smaller.

The video doesn’t show the whole pour, which several commenters pointed out. “It’s only cut to make the video shorter bro,” Marco replied.

Given the other content on the channel, some felt that it’s fair to wonder about the pair’s scientific rigor.

The clerk had a point about the jug. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission tells drivers to “transport and store liquid fuel only in appropriate, child-resistant containers specifically designed for this purpose,” and warns that “using any other type of container, like a jug or plastic bag, is extremely dangerous.” The agency also says to set a fuel container on the ground while filling it.

The Nine-Tenths Myth

A popular theory in the comments is that drivers never pay for a full gallon in the first place. “If you pay attention when you buy a gallon of gas you are paying for 9/10ths of a gallon,” wrote zombieznganja. “It’s on the sign.”

The fraction on the sign is actually a fraction of a cent. Stations have priced gas to nine-tenths of a cent since states began taxing fuel in tenths of a cent in the early 20th century, CNN reported in 2022, and most had settled on 9/10 by the 1950s, which marketers call “just-below pricing.”

‘Quality Investigative Reporting’

Some commenters treated the stunt as a public service. “Now this is quality investigative reporting,” wrote pwpppi, in a comment with more than 10,000 likes.

Several commenters said they recognized the station. Asked where gas costs $4.73 a gallon, Marco replied, “Louisiana.”

What do you think?

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Others suspected the jug. “Look at the jug they’re using, it’s not a true 1 gallon jug,” wrote izamorai. “It’s much taller.” And nxnrezzie wrote that “a lot of gas stations have been caught and forced to recalibrate their pumps,” which is the job state inspectors do with a prover rather than a water bottle.

Motor1 reached out to Marco via TikTok direct message, and to Shell, for comment. We’ll be sure to update this if they respond.

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