# Where Your Money Goes: What Really Happens When We Recover Your Misfuelled Car > The most common concern we hear is that a misfuel recovery cost more than expected. Here is the work you did not see, who did it, and where every part of your invoice goes — in plain English. - Canonical URL: https://www.eek.nz/news/where-your-money-goes-misfuel-recovery-nz - Published: 2026-11-03 - Updated: 2026-11-03 - Author: Michael Smith, Founder & CEO, Forman Pacific, LLC (https://www.formanpacific.com/about/founder/) - Publisher: EEK Mechanical, a trade name of Forman Pacific, LLC The most common thing customers tell us after a misfuel recovery is simple and honest: **it cost more than they expected**, or they are not sure they agreed to the price in advance. You deserve a straight answer. This page shows the work you did not see while you were standing on a forecourt or waiting by a motorway, who did it, and where the money on your invoice actually goes. We are doing something most businesses avoid: naming the criticism openly and showing the work behind the bill. Research on operational and cost transparency — including work by Ryan Buell at [Harvard Business School](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55804) and related marketing-science studies on voluntarily showing where money goes — finds that when customers can see hidden effort and cost drivers, trust and perceived fairness rise. That is the spirit of this page, not a lecture. We are not asking you to cheer for an invoice. Misfuelling is stressful, often embarrassing, and usually happens at the worst possible moment. If the number on the final bill surprised you, that feeling is valid. Our job is to show you what that number paid for — so you can judge fairness for yourself against facts, not guesswork. ## Claiming on insurance? Appoint EEK Mechanical as your principal repairer - Lodge a misfuel claim with your insurer and get your claim number. - Tell your insurer EEK Mechanical is your principal repairer for this job — not the workshop. The workshop works for us, does not invoice you or your insurer, and cannot answer for the job. You have the right to choose your own repairer; panel or preferred-repairer arrangements do not override that choice. - Give your insurer your EEK job reference and our claims contact: [mailto:claims@eek.nz](mailto:claims@eek.nz), [09 885 2000](tel:098852000). Our insurer terms are at [terms](/claims/terms). - Add your insurer and claim number in your customer portal so the technical report goes to them directly. - Send your insurer the itemised invoice and insurance report, both in your portal. If we are settling directly with your insurer, the order changes: we send your insurer the technical report and our invoice, your insurer pays us for the covered repair, you pay only your excess (and anything they decline), and your car is released once both are settled. Your insurer may appoint an assessor — we will tell you if that happens. If the insurer is slow, storage may accrue under our Terms, so keep your claim number handy and chase them with us. [Terms §11.1](/terms#11.1) [Terms §11.5](/terms#11.5) [Claims terms](/claims/terms) ## The work you did not see A misfuel recovery is not one person with a hose. It is a coordinated chain of people, equipment, compliance steps, and records — most of it happening after your car leaves your sight. While you wait for updates, a tow operator is routing to you, a workshop is preparing a bay, coordinators are matching your vehicle to the right procedure, and disposal paperwork is already in motion. Here is the path every EEK job follows — aligned with What to Expect in your customer portal — and the trust explainer PDF attached to your invoice shows each stage ticked off with the time it happened. [Policy 2.3](/policies#2.3) Every one of these stages is timestamped in your job record, and the trust document attached to your invoice shows each one ticked off with the time it happened. [Policy 2.3](/policies#2.3) - 1**Deposit Paid — terms and rate card accepted** You accept our Terms of Service and published rate card and pay your deposit. That is the moment your price framework is agreed, and we record when you accepted. [Terms §7.1](/terms#7.1) [Terms §1.9](/terms#1.9) [Rate card](/rate-card) - ↓ - 2**Certified operator confirmed** We find the nearest available certified tow operator and workshop in our network and they accept your job. [Terms §5.2](/terms#5.2) [Policy 2.1](/policies#2.1) - ↓ - 3**Tow Truck Collection** Your car is collected and transported sealed — no engine start, no ignition, no work at the roadside. Remediation follows the manufacturer's procedure in a workshop, not on a forecourt or motorway shoulder. You do not need to follow it; network workshops are not open to the public for safety. [Terms §5.3](/terms#5.3) [Policy 19.2](/policies#19.2) [Terms §12.5](/terms#12.5) - ↓ - 4**Vehicle at Workshop** The technician inspects the car and confirms the contamination before any work begins. If anything unexpected comes up, we contact you first. [Terms §5.4](/terms#5.4) [Policy 2.3](/policies#2.3) - ↓ - 5**Service in Progress** Contaminated fuel is fully extracted under ignition control — a partial drain is not acceptable. The system is flushed and refilled with the fuel the manufacturer specifies, following the manufacturer's procedure for your vehicle, and the engine is tested. Waste fuel goes to a licensed disposal carrier. [Policy 19.2](/policies#19.2) [Terms §5.4](/terms#5.4) [Terms §12.5](/terms#12.5) - ↓ - 6**Invoice issued** Your invoice is built from the rate card you accepted and your job record. Every line maps back, and we will walk you through any of it. [Terms §6.4](/terms#6.4) [Rate card](/rate-card) - ↓ - 7**Invoice & Payment** You pay by NZ bank transfer. Your vehicle is only released once payment is confirmed. (If your insurer is settling directly, they pay us and you pay only your excess.) [Terms §6.3](/terms#6.3) [Terms §7.3](/terms#7.3) [Terms §10.1](/terms#10.1) - ↓ - 8**Vehicle Collection** You collect your car from the workshop — arrange your own transport to get there — and confirm collection in your portal. [Terms §6.3](/terms#6.3) [Policy 2.5](/policies#2.5) - ↓ - 9**Insurance Report** A full technical report, signed off by your technician, is emailed to you — and to your insurer if you gave us their details. [Terms §11.8](/terms#11.8) - ↓ - 10**Filed on the NZIFDA register** Your job is filed on the NZIFDA National Misfuel Register, giving you a Certificate of Compliance for your insurer, finance company or a future buyer. [Terms §7.13](/terms#7.13) None of those steps is optional on a compliant EEK job. Skipping disposal paperwork, register filing, or workshop controls would be cheaper on paper and riskier in reality — for you, for the workshop, and for anyone downstream who buys your car. When customers ask us to "just suck it out here", we say no because we will not put your safety, our contractors' licences, or your insurer's file at risk. [Policy 19.2](/policies#19.2) ## Where your money goes Most businesses do not publish this. We think you should see it. When only a total appears on an invoice, it is easy to assume someone kept the difference as unexplained margin. In our case, the largest share leaves EEK immediately to pay the tow operator and workshop who actually touched your vehicle. Another share pays for you to find us at all. A further share pays for the people and systems that kept your job moving while you were standing in the rain. [Terms §7.5](/terms#7.5) Revenue allocation (last 30 days to 3 November 2026, 0 jobs, fallback): - Local suppliers: 41% — The tow operator and workshop who did the physical work: their trucks, workshops, technicians, fuel, parts, consumables and disposal. Mostly small, family-owned New Zealand businesses. - Finding you: 20% — Advertising so that at 2am on a motorway, the right people come up when you search. It is the price of being findable when it matters. - The people who run EEK: 30% — Dispatch, coordination, customer support, disputes, accounts, and the engineering behind the EEK platform — the teams and contractors who keep jobs moving and are on call around the clock. Without that work, nothing moves. We are a New Zealand-born innovation, built by Kiwi coders and exported to the world — see our sister sites eekmechanical.com and eekmechanical.co.uk. All design, build and product work is done in house by our dedicated SaaS engineers. We hope you appreciate the effort that has gone into this platform. - Technology: 5% — The dispatch and customer-portal platform, servers, AI-assisted development and support tools, the 0800 phone system, SMS and email, and vehicle lookups. - Insurance, accounting & compliance: 2% — Liability insurance, accounting, banking, legal and regulatory compliance. - Left over: 2% — What remains when every cost, including the people who run the business, is paid at market rates. Based on EEK invoices and supplier costs for the 30 days to 3 November 2026 (0 jobs), rounded. People costs are valued at New Zealand contractor market rates for a senior developer/architect (NZ$100-150 per hour; Absolute IT 2026 IT Salary & Contractor Rate Guide). Technology and administration are estimates of monthly running costs. Percentages are averages; your job may differ. **The costs you do not see** sit underneath that breakdown: answering the phone at 3am on Christmas Day, keeping a dispatch platform running every minute of the year, maintaining records for the National Misfuel Register, and standing behind the job afterwards — including coordinating warranty claims under Terms §12.5 when applicable. Those costs exist whether or not anyone misfuels that night. [Terms §12.5](/terms#12.5) [Policy 2.2](/policies#2.2) ## When your price was agreed Your price framework is agreed when you pay your booking deposit. That payment means you accept our [Terms of Service](/terms) and the published [rate card](/rate-card). Your invoice is built from that rate card and your job record in our system — every line maps to it, and we will walk you through any line you question. [Terms §7.1](/terms#7.1) That is different from a verbal quote at a forecourt. The rate card is on the website before you book. Your customer portal stores what was accepted and when. If an insurer or fleet manager asks how the total was built, we can show the same mapping you can see yourself. [Rate card](/rate-card) We do not surge-price. Rates are published and fixed. Loadings apply only for time of day and public holidays because tow operators and workshops charge more then — not because you are stuck, not because demand spiked, and not because it is inconvenient for you. Emergency services feel unfair when prices look arbitrary; research on perceived fairness (including classic work by Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler on what people treat as fair in markets) suggests people accept cost-driven pricing more readily when they can see the work — that is why we publish this page. [Terms §7.5](/terms#7.5) ## Why we tow to a workshop instead of working where the car stopped Misfuel remediation is done to the vehicle manufacturer's procedure: full extraction (a partial drain is not acceptable), flush and refill with the correct fuel, and testing — in a workshop with ignition control and licensed disposal, not on a motorway shoulder or service station forecourt. We only put our name to work we are satisfied was completed correctly. Doing it in a workshop, to the manufacturer's procedure, is how we know — and it is why fuel pump and injector services carry our 12-month no-fault warranty ([Terms §12.5](/terms#12.5)). [Terms §12.5](/terms#12.5) [Policy 19.2](/policies#19.2) [Terms §5.3](/terms#5.3) Petrol vapour can still ignite from a single spark. New Zealand treats petrol as a highly flammable hazardous substance under the [Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1996/0030/latest/whole.html) and the [Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2017/0131/latest/whole.html). The business doing the work must control ignition sources, contain spills, and dispose lawfully under the [Health and Safety at Work Act 2015](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0070/latest/whole.html) and [WorkSafe](https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/topic-and-industry/hazardous-substances/) guidance. Discharging contaminants to land or water without authorisation is restricted under the [Resource Management Act 1991](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0069/latest/whole.html), section 15. Real incidents explain why those rules exist. In 2019, a Queenstown workshop fire started when petrol vapour ignited during an uncontrolled tank emptying with a power tool ([Otago Daily Times](https://www.odt.co.nz/otago/queenstown/drilling-into-petrol-tank-sparked-fire-at-car-franchise-yuis9pyq)). In 2013, static discharge at a Rotorua forecourt ignited vapour at a fuel filler ([NZ Herald](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/static-causes-fire-at-petrol-station/UQ46CKY36JUOQHSOOOZFIDE2ZI/)). EEK always tows to a controlled workshop for fuel removal — that is the safe, lawful model. [Terms §5.3](/terms#5.3) ## Our promises These are not slogans on a banner. They are operational rules we hold ourselves to when a job is hard, when it is 3am, and when a customer is upset. [Terms §7.5](/terms#7.5) - **No surge pricing** — published rates, with time-and-holiday loadings only. [Terms §7.5](/terms#7.5) - **Every invoice line maps to the rate card you accepted** — and we will show you how. [Rate card](/rate-card) [Terms §6.4](/terms#6.4) - **If we get it wrong, we fix it** — in about one in eight completed billing disputes we found a genuine fault on our side and put it right. [Terms §7.12](/terms#7.12) - **12-month no-fault warranty** on fuel pump and injector services after misfuel remediation — if failure within 12 months of service completion is attributable to residual effects of the original contamination, EEK at no charge lodges and coordinates a claim through the workshop's professional indemnity insurance; exclusions and CGA rights are in Terms §12.5 and §12.4. [Terms §12.5](/terms#12.5) [Terms §12.4](/terms#12.4) ## Check us yourself You do not have to take our word for any of this. After a certified job you receive a **Certificate of Compliance**. The same job is filed on the **NZIFDA National Misfuel Register** at [nzifda.org](https://www.nzifda.org). NZIFDA is an industry register and certification scheme founded by EEK's parent company Forman Pacific — we disclose that openly; it is not a government regulator, but it is a permanent record insurers and buyers can check. [Terms §7.13](/terms#7.13) - Your job record, messages, and documents in your [customer portal](/customer). - Our published [rate card](/rate-card) — compare any invoice line to the published code. - Our [Terms of Service](/terms) — the contract you accepted at deposit. - Our [certification](/certification) page — how NZIFDA Tier 1 status fits the recovery chain. ## If something is not right Talk to us first. Most concerns are resolved quickly when someone walks the invoice line by line against the rate card and the portal record. Reply in your customer portal or call [0800 769 000](tel:0800769000) and ask for a manager — not a script, not a bot. A real person reviews every concern against your job record, the supplier submissions, and the register filing. [Terms §17.3](/terms#17.3) [Policy 9.2](/policies#9.2) If we still disagree after that conversation, use our [disputes portal](/disputes-tribunal). Your rights under the [Consumer Guarantees Act 1993](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0091/latest/whole.html) and [Fair Trading Act 1986](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0121/latest/whole.html) are never removed by our terms. We would rather fix a genuine mistake than defend a bad line. [Terms §12.4](/terms#12.4) [Terms §17.9](/terms#17.9) Every customer invoice includes our trust explainer PDF — each stage of your job ticked off with the time it happened, plus how to claim on insurance, where the money goes, our promises, and how to raise a concern: [trust explainer PDF](/trust/explainer.pdf). — **Michael Smith**, Owner, EEK Mechanical ## Frequently asked questions ### Why did my misfuel recovery cost more than I expected? Most surprises come from not seeing the full chain: 24/7 dispatch, tow to a workshop, manufacturer-aligned decontamination, licensed hazardous-waste disposal, register documentation, and after-hours supplier loadings. Your invoice is itemised against the rate card you accepted at booking — we will walk you through any line. Rate card Terms §7.5 ### When did I agree to the price? When you pay your booking deposit you accept our Terms of Service and the published nationwide rate card. Your final invoice is built from that rate card and your job record — not from a verbal quote at the roadside. Terms §7.1 Rate card ### Why tow my car instead of fixing it where it is? Misfuel remediation is done to the vehicle manufacturer's procedure — full extraction, flush, refill, and test — which requires a workshop with ignition control and licensed disposal, not a motorway shoulder or forecourt. Petrol vapour can still ignite from a single spark, and New Zealand hazardous-substances law makes the business doing the work responsible for those controls. We only put our name to work we are satisfied was completed correctly, and the workshop is how we know — it is why fuel pump and injector services carry our 12-month no-fault warranty. Terms §5.3 Terms §12.5 Policy 19.2 ### Do you charge more when I am stuck at night or feeling desperate? No. Our rates are published and fixed. Loadings apply only for time of day and public holidays because tow operators and workshops charge more then — never because demand is high or because you are in a hurry. Terms §7.5 ### Where does my money actually go? The largest share of what you pay goes to the local tow operator and workshop who did the physical work. A portion covers finding you when you search at 2am, running dispatch and support, technology, insurance, accounting, and compliance. The live breakdown on this page is built from recent invoices — your job may differ slightly. Terms §7.5 ### What is NZIFDA and why is it on my invoice? NZIFDA is the New Zealand industry register and certification scheme for misfuel recovery, founded by EEK's parent company Forman Pacific — it is not a government regulator. Certified jobs are filed on the National Misfuel Register and you receive a Certificate of Compliance for insurers, finance companies, and future buyers. Terms §7.13 ### What if I think something on my invoice is wrong? Talk to us first. Reply in your customer portal or call 0800 769 000 and ask for a manager. A real person reviews every concern against your job record and the rate card. You can also use our disputes portal. Billing disputes must be raised through that process within the period in Terms §7.12. Your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and Fair Trading Act 1986 are never removed. Terms §17.3 Terms §7.12 Policy 9.2 Terms §12.4 ### Is there a warranty on the work? Yes. Fuel pump and injector services done as part of your misfuel remediation carry a 12-month no-fault warranty under our Terms §12.5. If a pump or injector fails within 12 months of service completion because of the original contamination, we lodge the claim against the workshop that did the work and coordinate the repair or replacement through their professional indemnity insurance, at no cost to you. It does not cover unrelated mechanical faults, a later misfuel, modifications, misuse or anything else within your control. Your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 are unaffected (Terms §12.4). ### Who should I tell my insurer is the repairer? Name EEK Mechanical as your principal repairer — not the workshop that holds your car. The workshop works for us and cannot speak for the job on a claim; tell your insurer to deal with us at claims@eek.nz or 09 885 2000. Terms §11.1 Claims terms ### What changes if my insurer pays EEK directly? We send your insurer the technical report and our invoice first; they pay us for the covered repair, you pay only your excess (and anything they decline), and your car is released once both are settled. Keep your claim number handy — if the insurer is slow, storage may accrue under our Terms. Terms §11.5 Terms §10.4 --- Source: https://www.eek.nz/news/where-your-money-goes-misfuel-recovery-nz