Shell UK

I went to this Shell service station the other night and was not at all impressed with the service.
The petrol station was really busy. A police car had just come in for petrol but turned around and left (presumably because it was so busy). I removed my petrol cap, put the pump nozzle in my car and waited for the employee inside the garage to activate the pump.
For some reason, the cashier wouldn’t start the petrol pump until I went inside and paid first, however, other customers didn’t have this problem, they filled up and paid afterwards.
The employee said I had to pay first at this time of night becuase they have a lot of people filling up with fuel and driving off without paying. I can understand this but what really upset me was the fact that he let all the other customers fill up before paying, which obviously meant he trusted them but not me (even though there was a police car on site when I first tried to fill up).
I was going to pay by card but he said I would have to leave the card with him, and as he didn’t trust me, I didn’t see why I should trust him with my card (after all, now that we have chip and pin, we are advised not to let our cards out of our sight). I also felt that it was a waste of my time to go back into the shop again after I had filled up so instead I just have him a £5 note and only put £5 in. I then went to another petrol station (en route) to fill up my tank, which actually worked out a lot cheaper because the price of petrol at this petrol station is very high (which is unusual for a Shell petrol station).
So, unless you want to be made to feel like a criminal or pay top whack for your petrol, I recommend avoiding this Shell filling station near Mile End.

Continual issues with traffic congestion as the size and layout of the site fails to absorb demand. Expect to have to queue. And watch out for other road users navigating around turning cars blocking the road.