Editorial standards
How we cover fuel theft
We sell a security product and we publish crime coverage. That combination obliges us to be explicit about the rules we work to — including the ones that cost us, so here they are.
1. We never publish a how-to
This is the rule everything else bends around. No article, image, caption or diagram on this site describes how a tampering device is built, obtained, installed, wired or operated. We do not name suppliers of such devices. We do not publish photographs showing dispenser interiors in enough detail to be instructional.
Our coverage reports that a theft happened, where it happened, and what it cost. It does not report how. If a detail would help an operator defend a site, it goes in. If it would help someone attack one, it does not — and when those overlap, it stays out.
This applies to us and to any freelancer or agency writing for us. It is in the author template, not just in a policy document.
2. We do not explain how our own product works
The same rule points inward, and further than most vendors take it. This site does not describe how the product works, how it is installed, or how it prevents theft. That means no materials, gauge, finish, dimensions or weight; no account of its form or where it sits; no fastening or mounting method; no installation steps; no part numbers; and no spec sheet. We will not send one on request.
A public account of how a security product is built and fitted is most useful to the person trying to get past it. It answers "what do I need to bring?" — and it answers it for free, at scale, to anyone.
An operator evaluating this does not actually need that. You need to know what it is built for, which attack surface it addresses and which it does not, who fits it and how long your position is down, and what it costs. All of that is on this site. The engineering conversation belongs between a customer with a site and their JF Petroleum branch, not on a page anyone can read.
This makes our product pages thinner than our competitors'. That is the intended trade, and we would rather explain it than quietly split the difference.
3. Named sources only
We cite one of three things, and nothing else:
- A named news outlet
- A law enforcement agency release or press conference
- A state weights and measures or regulatory agency bulletin
No content-farm aggregators. No unsourced social media posts. No "industry sources say." If we cannot point you at who reported it, we do not run it.
4. We summarize and link — we do not republish
Every incident post is written in our own words and links out to the original report. We do not reproduce article bodies and we do not use news outlets' photographs. The outlet that did the work gets the click.
5. Figures are the ones the source stated
Gallon counts, dollar values, arrest numbers and dates come from the cited report. We do not estimate, round up for effect, or aggregate figures across sources to produce a bigger number. Where a source does not state a figure, we say so rather than filling the gap.
Where two reports conflict, we say that too. Where we could not verify a widely-circulated claim, we leave it out rather than hedge it.
6. We are honest about what our product does not do
Fuel theft at a retail site happens across at least three separate attack surfaces — underground storage tanks, dispenser internals, and card readers. Our covers address one of them. We say so on the product page, in our coverage, and in conversation.
Where a case we cover would not have been prevented by our product, we say that in the post. The Operation Van Diesel write-up exists mainly to make that distinction.
7. No invented social proof
No fabricated testimonials, no invented case studies, no statistics without a source, no review counts we cannot substantiate. If a customer story appears here, that customer agreed to it.
8. Corrections
If we get something wrong, tell us and we will fix it and mark what changed. If a source we cited issues a correction, we follow it. Contact us here.
Why this page exists
Crime coverage attracts traffic. A company selling a security solution has an obvious incentive to make the threat sound as large and as frightening as possible, and to lean on the lurid details because those travel furthest.
The costs of doing it that way land on someone else: on operators who make decisions from inflated numbers, on the outlets whose reporting gets strip-mined, and on the stations that get hit by someone who learned something they should not have.
Publishing these rules where you can hold us to them is the point of writing them down.