IAMAFool wrote:
Simple test……go fill up you`re van with diesel, then read the pump and tell the forecourt attendant you will pay when you get paid.If you knownly ask for services of any kind without the means of payment it is illegal……fact.
No it’s not. To use your example: filling up and driving away is illegal, filling up and leaving your contact details and a promise to pay isn’t.
Posted under Legal Issues
Posted by Alec at 10:22 am, August 6, 2007
There might very well be a sticker on the pump; that doesn’t make it the law though. There’s nothing whatsoever illegal about filling up your fuel tank without the means to pay. A crime would only be committed if you intended to keep the fuel without ever paying for it.
It’s not a particularly good example anyway, since Fraud and Theft are two different crimes.
There’s nothing fraudulent about obtaining services without the means to pay if you intend to pay and you reasonably believe that you’ll have the funds to pay at some time in the future.
Yes, that’s what I said.
Yes it would. If you fully intended to pay at the time you obtained the goods/services but circumstances have left you unable to pay then no crime’s been committed. The key word is ‘intent’; you have to have intended to commit fraud or no fraud has been committed.