Tourists Say Playa del Carmen Pemex Station Charged Them $150 for a Partially Filled Tank

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo — A family vacationing on the Riviera Maya says staff at a Pemex gas station threatened them into paying $150 for fuel that never filled their tank, according to a post the group published on social media.

The American tourist wrote in English on Reddit that attendants at the station, located on Federal Highway 307 next to a Bepensa facility, surrounded her family and demanded money. They paid, she said, but left terrified.

She explained that the family had grown tired of being overcharged by taxi drivers. On a previous visit, she said, they were surrounded by taxi drivers while taking an Uber and watched as the drivers pulled their suitcases out by force and forced them into a cab. This time they decided to rent a car instead — and ended up being overcharged at the Playa del Carmen gas station.

“When we arrived at this gas station yesterday at 9:50 AM, we were surrounded by pump attendants eager to ‘help’ us. That should have been a red flag,” she wrote. “Their terminal did not accept any of our cards, so we had to pay cash after they filled the tank.”

The attendants demanded $89 for the fuel — about 1,600 pesos, far above the normal price. The family pooled the bills they had: four $20s and two $5s, $90 in total.

When they handed the money over, she said, the Pemex worker switched the bills for $1 and $5 notes and claimed they had given him only $20. The group of employees then surrounded the couple and demanded more money. The woman began arguing with them, but her husband was terrified and agreed to hand over another $60, bringing the total to $150.

“When we left, we saw that they hadn’t even filled the tank, so we had to pay the difference at 10 times the cost at the rental company, because my husband was too terrified to go to another gas station,” she added.

“We are totally disgusted with this place and wanted to warn everyone,” the tourist concluded.

The Reddit thread drew dozens of comments from people sharing similar experiences or offering tips to avoid being overcharged, such as paying only in pesos and watching to make sure the pump starts at zero.

It is the same station that residents of Playa del Carmen reported weeks earlier for failing to reset the meter to zero when a customer pays in cash, so the next driver is charged for that fuel as well.