Weekly Quality Report丨"Stealing oil" and "tax evasion"? Revealing the "greasy" in the gas station

CCTV News

2024-05-19 14:21Posted on the official CCTV news account of Beijing China Central Radio and Television

According to statistics, the number of motor vehicles in mainland China has reached 435 million, and the number of newly registered cars has increased at a rate of more than 20 million per year for ten consecutive years. Going to the gas station to refuel has become a necessary daily consumption for many car owners. However, the reporter found in the investigation that some gas stations secretly adopted illegal means to "steal oil", shortages of catties and pounds, so that the owners unknowingly suffered economic losses.

In May last year, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Administration for Market Regulation received a report that a gas station in Baotou City was suspected of cheating and "stealing oil" when refueling vehicles, harming consumers. After receiving the clues, the market regulators immediately conducted a law enforcement inspection of the gas station.

Under normal circumstances, a gas station only needs a management system, which is installed on the front computer and is easy for operators to use. But in addition to the front computer, law enforcement officers found another computer in an extremely private corner of the lounge.

The wardrobe looks normal on the surface, but the bottom is carefully set up with a mezzanine, and the computer is placed behind the mezzanine, which can only be found by removing the wardrobe. So hidden, what secrets are hidden in this computer? Law enforcement officers conducted several inspections and tests, and finally found the cat in it.

It turned out that the so-called "Behring Gas Station Refueling Management System" installed in this computer was actually a cheating software with the function of "stealing oil" installed by the gas station without permission. Gas station operators can set arbitrary parameters on this cheating software to control the percentage of fuel stolen and pay consumers less fuel.

Liu Feng, a third-level researcher of the Law Enforcement and Inspection Bureau of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Market Supervision Administration: Under normal refueling conditions, consumers usually refuel at about 40 to 50 liters, and under normal circumstances, they will adjust the software to 2 to 3, what does this mean? We go to add 50 liters of oil, if it is adjusted to 3, it will give 1.5 liters of less oil, but this is not reflected on the fuel gauge for the 50-liter fuel tank, and it is difficult for ordinary people to intuitively find out (stealing oil).

By installing cheating software, gas station operators can successfully crack or bypass various anti-cheating facilities including the self-locking function of the fuel dispenser, realize remote control, and achieve the purpose of "stealing oil". And consumers don't even notice it.

The law enforcement officers then made a measurement verification of the 15 refueling guns used in the 8 refueling machines of the gas station, and the results showed that the error of the 15 refueling guns of the gas station exceeded the national standard limit by more than three times, of which 11 refueling guns had an indication error of more than 1%, up to 1.23%, which was more than 4 times the national standard limit, that is, for every 100 liters of oil, consumers should be paid 1.23 liters less, far exceeding the national standard.

The reporter learned that in order to ensure that the error of refueling volume is within the range of ±0.3% limited by the national standard and protect the interests of consumers, the mainland has strict regulations on the production, use and even maintenance process of fuel dispensers.

Liu Feng, a third-level researcher of the Law Enforcement Inspection Bureau of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Market Supervision Administration: As a measuring instrument used for trade settlement, the fuel dispenser must undergo strict type inspection and verification before leaving the factory; After leaving the factory, the fuel dispenser shall not be changed without the consent or permission of the relevant departments. If the motherboard is replaced, it must be verified by the verification department, and the qualified enterprise will repair it, and after the repair, it can only be used after passing the verification of the statutory body.

Not only that, the "Fuel Dispenser Verification Regulations" also clearly stipulates that the fuel dispenser must have a self-locking function, that is, when the application and parameters involved in the metering in the fuel dispenser are illegally changed, or when the pulse equivalent of the fuel dispenser is abnormal, the fuel dispenser should be locked and cannot continue to refuel.

However, the error of the 15 refueling guns at this gas station all obviously exceeds the national standard limit, but why can it still be used normally?

During the investigation, the reporter found that the gas station that used cheating software to "steal oil" was not an isolated case. Just last week, Guangxi Baise market regulators investigated and dealt with two similar illegal acts in one day.

At a gas station in the east of Pingguo City, Baise City, after law enforcement officers came to the scene, they first took control of the front computer, emergency power supply and fuel dispenser of the gas station.

At the front desk of the gas station, the computer's installed refueling control system looks normal on the surface, but further inspection reveals that there is a subtle hint hidden in it.

After verification by the testers, the error rate of the fuel dispenser is +2.05%, which is about 7 times the national standard limit.

Subsequently, the law enforcement officers dismantled the main board of the fuel dispenser, and brought back the computer and other related equipment involved in the metering cheating for further data recovery and verification.

In further investigation, the reporter found that in order to achieve the purpose of stealing oil, some gas stations also directly moved on the hardware of the fuel dispenser.

This is the picture taken by the reporter when he followed the Chongqing Municipal Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Corps to conduct on-site law enforcement inspections of gas stations. After careful observation, law enforcement officers soon found that there were suspicious meters in the metering chip in the gas station dispenser.

The metering chip is an important part of the core component of the fuel dispenser, the main function is to monitor and control the oil volume, flow, pressure, temperature and other parameters of the fuel dispenser, so as to ensure the stability and safety of the fuel dispenser. According to law enforcement officials, once the metering chip is changed, the most direct impact is that the actual refueling volume is inconsistent with the data displayed by the indicator device seen by consumers. In order to confirm whether the metering chip of this fuel dispenser has been tampered with, law enforcement officers conducted a test on the spot.

Huang Jian, deputy head of the product quality detachment of the Chongqing Municipal Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Corps: We will use our own program to activate the calculation and control motherboard of the fuel dispenser. If the metering and control board of the fuel dispenser is a motherboard without (cheating) function, our software cannot communicate with it. The principle of the fuel dispenser is that its motherboard can only send data to the computer, and the computer should not send data to the motherboard of the fuel dispenser.

After linking the external transfer equipment with the cheating program with the fuel dispenser, the law enforcement team members reproduced the process of metering cheating at the gas station by adjusting the parameters of the back-end computer of the gas station, and measured the range of measurement deviation that the fuel dispenser can achieve.

Field tests have confirmed that the fuel dispenser originally equipped with an anti-cheating system can be replaced with a metering chip and the error value can be adjusted arbitrarily by artificially. The error that should be within ±0.3% can even be adjusted to 20%.

In the interview, the reporter learned that when gas stations implement metering cheating, in order not to let consumers notice, the amount of oil stolen is usually set at about 2% to 5%. In this way, consumers add a tank of 60 liters of oil, and the gas station will give at least 1.2 liters less. Based on the price of gasoline at 8 yuan per liter, consumers will have to pay at least 9.6 yuan more.

The amount of fuel cut in a short catty or two seriously infringes on the interests of the majority of car owners. As the investigation deepened, the reporter found that there were also some gas stations that cheated by passing off low-grade oil products as high-grade oil products to deceive consumers.

When the reporter followed the Shaanxi Provincial Market Regulators to conduct a law enforcement inspection of a gas station in Shanyang County, Shangluo City, it was found that the gas station claimed that it could add both No. 92 and No. 95 gasoline. But what is puzzling is that there is only one oil pipeline from the oil depot to the fuel dispenser at the gas station, how can it transport two different grades of oil at the same time?

After investigation, this gas station did not have 95 gasoline at all. The so-called No. 95 gasoline marked on the fuel dispenser is actually shoddy, and the price of No. 92 gasoline is marked as similar to No. 95 gasoline to deceive consumers.

Duan Zengfu, director of the inspection bureau of the Shaanxi Provincial Market Supervision Bureau: According to the statistics of our law enforcement officers, there are more than 13,000 liters of oil involved in the case, and the amount involved has reached more than 90,000 yuan.

Not only is it shoddy, but further investigation revealed that the gas station was also suspected of using keyboard input to cheat on metering and underpay consumers for fuel. The identification results of the manufacturers of the motherboards of the dispensers showed that the monitoring microprocessors used in these motherboards were not original products, and the motherboards and metering programs were artificially altered.

Duan Zengfu, director of the inspection bureau of the Shaanxi Provincial Market Supervision Bureau: At present, some refined oil business enterprises for their own interests, regardless of the rights and interests of consumers, take advantage of system loopholes and regulatory blind spots, with the help of high-tech means to tamper with the specifications of fuel dispensers, and implement consumer fraud. This seriously infringes on the rights and interests of consumers and is a serious act of dishonesty.

Whether it is installing cheating software without permission, directly changing the metering chip to "steal oil", or passing off No. 92 gasoline as No. 95 gasoline and shoddy, it seriously infringes on the interests of consumers. In further investigation, the reporter also found that some gas stations not only "steal oil", but also "evade taxes" through various technical means, harming national interests.

The reporter learned in the investigation that since last year, market supervision departments across the country have increased the investigation and punishment of cheating in the measurement of fuel dispensers. Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Henan, Shandong, Chongqing, Gansu, Hebei, Liaoning and other places have all found illegal "oil theft" at gas stations. The reporter noticed that these cases show that whether it is the installation of cheating software or the artificial replacement of metering chips, while stealing oil, gas station operators also wantonly evade taxes, which brings great losses to the national tax revenue.

In the Inner Mongolia Quality Inspection Institute, professionals showed reporters the process of cheating software to achieve cheating. The reporter found that this cheating software can not only modify the metering data of the fuel dispenser in order to "steal oil", but also modify the tax control data, so that the main board of the fuel dispenser does not record the transaction value, so as to achieve the purpose of tax evasion.

According to professionals, under normal circumstances, the tax authorities will levy taxes and fees on gas stations according to the transaction value recorded on the main board of the fuel dispenser calculation and control, and once the main board of the calculation and control records less or no actual transaction value, the gas station operator can evade the value-added tax and enterprise income tax that should be paid.

Liu Feng, a third-level investigator of the Law Enforcement Inspection Bureau of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Market Supervision Administration: When the tax officer conducts an inspection, he will check the real transaction volume through the tax declaration port on the main board of the fuel dispenser calculation and control, but now he does not record the transaction record truthfully through the software, that is, the real transaction record, and hides it to avoid the inspection of our law enforcement officers.

According to public data released by the Inner Mongolia Market Supervision Bureau, the nine tax-related clues handed over by the bureau to the tax authorities last year alone amounted to nearly 30 million yuan. On Thursday, the reporter learned from the press conference of the special action to comprehensively control the cheating of fuel dispensers held by the State Administration of Market Supervision that since August last year, a total of 1,249 cases of cheating of fuel dispensers have been investigated and dealt with across the country, involving an amount of 2.002 billion yuan and a fine of 697 million yuan. A total of 609 gas stations have been inspected by local tax inspection departments for cheating and tax evasion by using fuel dispensers.

Fu Yangfan, deputy director of the Department of Collection, Management and Science and Technology Development of the State Administration of Taxation, and first-level inspector: A total of 1.961 billion yuan was imposed on taxes and fees, late fees, and fines. At the same time, the tax department has also carried out special inspections on high-risk gas stations that evade taxes by means of extracorporeal circulation and hidden income.

According to the market supervision department, the cheating of fuel dispensers is highly professional, and different brands of fuel dispensers even have different cheating software, which is very high-tech, and the operation methods are extremely hidden, and it is difficult to investigate and deal with them. In view of these characteristics, on the one hand, the regulatory authorities will intensify the crackdown, and on the other hand, the mainland's newly revised national standard for "motor vehicle fuel dispenser" will also be officially implemented on June 1. The new standard focuses on revising the metering performance, environmental performance and anti-cheating performance of fuel dispensers, which will effectively prevent cheating of fuel dispensers.

Guo Huanxin, first-level inspector of the Standards and Technology Department of the State Administration of Market Supervision: In terms of anti-cheating performance, through technologies such as "unique digital signature of software and hardware", "full life cycle verification of core components", and "national secret chip storage", the main responsibility of each link in the whole life cycle of the fuel dispenser is defined to prevent criminals from tampering with the fuel dispenser and cheating to the greatest extent.

The State Administration for Market Regulation said that while revising the national standard to "plug the leakage", the market supervision department will continue to work with the public security, commerce and taxation departments to strengthen law enforcement cooperation to crack down on illegal and criminal acts of fuel dispenser cheating, and promote multi-party coordination to control fuel dispenser cheating.

Nan Jun, Deputy Director of the Law Enforcement and Inspection Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation: In the next step, the comprehensive governance work will continue to adhere to the simultaneous construction and construction, combine special governance with normalized supervision and law enforcement, crack down on the stock, curb the increment, so that cheaters have nowhere to hide, and "cheer" for the honest to move forward.

Cracking down on illegal petrol stations is a systematic project. In addition to paying attention to daily supervision and taking consumer complaints and reports seriously, the relevant regulatory authorities should also severely crack down on the relevant black industry chain. The metering of fuel dispensers is not only related to the vital interests of consumers, but also related to national taxation, and it is necessary to maintain zero tolerance for illegal acts in order to purify the order of the industry and safeguard the public interest.

Producer丨 Blooming Xiaotang

Reporter丨Wang Jun, Hu He Muren, Chen Yang, Li Zhi, Wang Jie

Photography丨Zhai Haochen, Liu Hongyan, Mo Xianglong

Editor丨Xing Yinghong

News leads are welcome at [email protected]

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