From: Ronald Raygun 
Subject: Re: Petrol Station rip off
Newsgroups: uk.finance uk.legal
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:56:46 GMT

Graham Murray wrote:

> Ronald Raygun  writes:
> 
>> Of course, in a normal self-service shop situation, the customer
>> takes the goods to the checkout and offers to buy them, and it's
>> easy for the retailer then to reject the offer.  This is obviously
>> impractical at a filling station, where the fuel is already in the
>> customer's car before he makes the offer to buy it.
> 
> Could it not argued that the offer to buy is made when the customer
> removes the filler nozzle from the pump and is accepted when the cashier
> presses the button to allow the pump to dispense fuel?

In principle that's a good idea, provided it is possible to create a
contract in which the quantity is indeterminate.  I don't know whether
that is possible.