PLAINFIELD, Ind. -- A costly mistake at a Plainfield gas station early Tuesday morning means the business is out a lot of money.

The mistake, blamed on a computer glitch at regular unleaded pumps at a Shell station near Interstate 70 and State Road 267, allowed people to fill up for just pennies.

Gas at the station was supposed to be $2.75 a gallon, but customers pulled up to the pumps to find a price of $.002 a gallon, 6News' Julie Pursley reported.

---

Video: Customers Pay Pennies To Fill Up
Video: Gas Station Has Little Recourse
Slideshow: Ultra-Cheap Gas Surprises Customers

---

The mistake was discovered early Tuesday morning, but several customers had already gotten away with a drastically low price fill-up.

The gas station is not exactly sure how many people took advantage of the situation. Since customers paid at the pump, clerks did not have to interface with the customers.

Driver Kenneth Krebs said he couldn't believe what he saw that allowed him to fill up his truck for 7 cents.

"I pulled into that gas station, put my card in to get gas and hit the 87 octane button and it came up like two-hundredths of a cent," Krebs said. "So, I proceeded in filling up my truck."

Krebs said the deal was so good, he and some friends came back for more.

"We probably got $700, $800 worth of gas for ... about a quarter," Krebs said.

A woman went into the store and told the clerk what was going on, showing her receipt for a few cents for several gallons of gas. That woman offered to come back into the store later Tuesday to pay the difference. The near free-for-all was stopped when workers shut down the pumps.

Gas station management would not tell 6News how much money was lost. They were trying to determine if they could go back and charge the people who got the bargain price after the fact.

"I think it was their mistake, and ... that's business," said driver Jim Sneddon.

The Indiana Grocery and Convenience Store Association said there isn't much the gas station can do if the mistake was the company's fault.

Hendricks County prosecutor Patricia Baldwin told 6News she couldn't imagine filing criminal charges in this case because people paid the price posted on the pump.

Baldwin said civil issues are an entirely different matter. The company could argue that a reasonable person would have realized that the price was a mistake.

Drivers were split about whether or not they would tell the gas station about the problem if they ran into a similar situation.