Tag Archives: Cheating

Are Petronas Petrol Stations Cheating At The Pump?

Are Petronas petrol stations cheating at the pump, giving you half of what you pay for?

Find out what people are accusing Petronas petrol stations of doing, and what the FACTS really are!

 

Claim : Petronas Petrol Stations Are Cheating At The Pump!

This audio message and video clip have gone viral several times on WhatsApp, after claiming to prove that Petronas petrol stations are cheating customers at the pump.

Here is our edited transcript of the audio message.

Everywhere, in Petronas [petrol stations], they are stealing our money.

You put money for 30 ringgit, only 15 ringgit petrol got. 15 ringgit they sapu (steal).

They really cheat their customers. Be careful, guys.

Last time, Petronas already got [a similar case] I think 1, 2 years ago. They stick back to that.

The lady who poured the petrol, look at how much petrol is coming [out]. The meter is running.

If you pump RM 30, you may get RM 15, or even just RM 10 of petrol.

So if you are refilling at Petronas petrol stations, be careful. They are cheating us in Malaysia.

 

Truth : Petronas Petrol Stations Are NOT Cheating At The Pump!

Although it is impossible to know for sure if the person on the voice message has a valid allegation against Petronas, but based on what we know at the moment – they are false allegations.

Fact #1 : The Video Was From October 2017

The video originally went viral in October 2017, and showing a Petronas pump attendant dispensing petrol into a metal bucket after a customer accused them of cheating at the pump.

It went viral again in July 2020, and once again in October 2022.

Fact #2 : It Was A Dispensing Speed Problem

After the video went viral, Petronas investigated and confirmed that the issue was with the speed of dispensing the petrol, not the amount.

In their Facebook clarification, they explained the problem and labelled the claims as false :

With reference to the social media and WhatsApp postings circulating pertaining to an incident at PETRONAS Station Simpang Pulai Arah Selatan, PETRONAS Dagangan Berhad (PDB) has carried out an investigation and wishes to clarify that the issue was with the rate of dispensing and not dispute of fuel-up quantity as claimed.

PDB has taken immediate action and is pleased to inform that the said pump has now been rectified.

PDB would like to emphasise that all of its fuel pumps are regularly calibrated and that this is an isolated case of technical glitch, which does not affect top-up quantity at all.

We hope the above clarifies the matter and we seek your kind co-operation to refrain from further sharing the false claim.

Fact #3 : Dispute Was RM 18 vs RM 20

The man on the voice message alleged that Petronas petrol stations will cheat you of half or two-thirds of what you paid – If you pump RM 30, you may get RM 15, or even just RM 10 of petrol.

But the October 2017 case involved a much smaller sum. The lady alleged that she only received RM 18 worth of petrol, after paying RM 20.

Fact #4 : It’s Impossible To Cheat So Much

Any motorist will roughly know how much it takes to fill up a full tank, or a half tank.

If you usually pay RM 50 to fill half a tank, and RM 100 to fill a full tank, you would immediately realise that something is wrong if you end up paying RM 200 to fill a full tank.

So it would be quite impossible for Petronas petrol stations (or any petrol stations of other brands) to cheat so flagrantly.

Fact #5 : The Pumps Are Regularly Calibrated

It is possible (technically) to cheat at the margins – by calibrating the pumps to dispense 2-3% less petrol.

That would be unnoticeable to the motorist, but would earn the petrol station a nice sum of money due to the amount of petrol being dispensed daily.

To curb that, petrol pump operators are required by law to calibrate their pumps on an annual basis. On top of that, the Malaysian government conducts enforcement checks to prevent fuel fraud.

 

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Realme On AnTuTu Cheating : A Bug? No Guidelines?

Realme just called us up personally to explain their side of the story, and sent us an official response to AnTuTu’s shocking claims of benchmark cheating!

Find out what’s going on, and what this benchmark cheating allegation could mean for the Realme brand, and potential Realme GT customers!

 

Realme On AnTuTu Cheating : It Was A Bug!

After we posted our coverage of AnTuTu exposing how the new Realme GT cheats at their benchmark, we received a personal call from Realme PR.

We were told that this was simply a misunderstanding of sorts – there was “a technical bug” that caused the “scoring issue“.

Unfortunately, they have yet to reveal what bug would cause the CPU thread delay and mosaic colour block modifications of the AnTuTu Benchmark in Realme GT.

We will update you with the details of this bug, when we receive them from Realme PR.

They also claimed that “for the last few months”, they “tried not to mention anything about AnTuTu Benchmark”, or “associate Realme with AnTuTu Benchmark”.

At this point, we should share that Realme CMO Xu Qi Chase himself posted this (now) infamous screenshot of Realme GT scoring over 770,000 on AnTuTu Benchmark on 20 February 2021 – less than a month ago.

 

Realme On AnTuTu Cheating : There Were No Guidelines!

Realme then followed up with an official statement, claiming that the realme GT benchmark results are accurate.

They also claimed that the misunderstanding was due to a lack of “official benchmark standards or guidelines“.

Benchmark scores of realme GT are all accurate data under the current versions of the Antutu benchmark.

realme has always been committed to bringing users excellent performance, the actual user experience is the top priority for realme.

On the other hand, regarding the test issues doubted by both sides, we are communicating with Antutu positively now.

Since there is no official benchmark standards or guidelines now, so maybe there are some different understanding between manufacturers and Antutu on how to get a higher benchmark score, so before the final conclusion, we think “cheating” may be misleading for followers, it’s better to change it to “an unverified high score”.

What happened to the bug???

As for guidelines when it comes to benchmarking, we are pretty sure it is as simple as :

  1. Update to the latest firmware.
  2. Clear all other apps.
  3. Run the benchmark as-is, without modifications.

What other guidelines do you need to run AnTuTu, or any other mobile benchmark really?

 

Realme GT Cheating In AnTuTu Benchmark : A Quick Primer!

AnTuTu just exposed how Realme cheated at their benchmark to obtain the phenomenally high score of over 770,000 that Xu Qi Chase posted above.

After analysing the performance of a retail Realme GT unit, they discovered that it implemented two cheats :

  • Thread Delay : falsely inflating the CPU multi-thread test score by intercepting threads and assigning them to the fast cores.
  • Mosaic Colour Block Modification : falsely inflating the UX score by replacing the details in the reference JPG image with colour blocks.

They then warned that if Realme does not remove the cheats within 3 months, they will ban Realme GT permanently.

Recommended : Realme GT Faces Ban After Cheating In AnTuTu Benchmark!

 

What Does Realme GT Cheating Mean For Potential Customers?

If AnTuTu allegations are true, this is going to really spike the sale of the Realme GT, which is set to launch in many countries.

Especially when this incident reminds potential buyers of the time when Realme was caught faking the 90 Hz display on the Realme 6 and Realme 6 Pro.

Perhaps that is why Realme has been reluctant to send their smartphones to be reviewed, relying instead on influencers and online sales to sell their smartphones.

This new AnTuTu Benchmark cheating scandal could be a serious blow to Realme’s credibility, and a tipping point for the Realme brand.

It became a fast-rising brand by borrowing the Xiaomi model of offering a ton of features at very low prices.

The fact that Realme has a flagship smartphone powered by the latest Snapdragon 888 SoC should be a testament to how far it came, so quickly.

Yet it appears that they will go way beyond aggressive pricing and other usual tactics to win market share.

Potential customers (and other benchmark developers) will now wonder – if the Realme GT was caught cheating in AnTuTu, could it also be cheating in other benchmarks?

Even worse – what other Realme smartphones employ such tactics to obtain higher than normal scores? This will be a real PR headache.

We should point out though that benchmark cheating is not limited to smartphone brands. Even MediaTek was caught cheating in 8 of their chipsets, involving more than 50 smartphones from Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo and yes, Realme too.

Recommended : MediaTek Benchmark Cheating : What Happened So Far

 

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Realme GT Faces Ban After Cheating In AnTuTu Benchmark!

The Realme GT faces a possible permanent ban after it was caught cheating in the AnTuTu Benchmark!

Find out what’s going on, and what it means to you – potential Realme customers!

 

Benchmark Cheating : Why Do It?

The smartphone industry is a cut-throat business, with brands fighting to differentiate their smartphones from their competitors. One of the ways is to demonstrate a clear performance advantage.

Other than the usual ways – using more powerful processor and graphics cores – brands can tune their operating system to focus more on performance, at the expense of battery life.

However, when they use the same mobile platform, a desperate brand may resort to cheating to gain an edge over their rivals.

AnTuTu is accusing Realme of doing just that with their flagship Realme GT smartphone.

 

Realme GT Caught Cheating In AnTuTu Benchmark?

On 15 March 2021, AnTuTu posted their Weibo expose on how the Realme GT cheated at their benchmark. For your convenience, we are reposting it at the end of this article with our English translation.

AnTuTu first became suspicious when Realme declared an AnTuTu Benchmark result of over 770,000 for their Realme GT smartphone before it launched.

When Realme did not respond to their questions, AnTuTu purchased a unit of the Realme GT to test it for themselves.

After analysing the performance of their unit, they discovered that the Realme GT implemented two cheats :

Thread Delay In CPU Multi-Thread Test

The Realme GT was allegedly designed to intercept the threads from the CPU Multi-Thread test, to schedule them to run on the fast cores as much as possible.

This falsely inflates its score by using the fast cores to process the threads, instead of testing the processor’s true multi-core capability in handling multiple threads concurrently.

Mosaic Colour Block Modification In UX Test

AnTuTu discovered that the Realme GT modified the reference JPG image with mosaic colour blocks.

By replacing the details in the original picture with blocking mosaics, the JPG decoding speed can be greatly inflated.

 

Realme GT Threatened With Permanent Ban

After announcing their results, AnTuTu announced that they removed all Realme GT scores for 3 months.

They also warned that if Realme does not remove the cheats within 3 months, they will ban Realme GT permanently.

AnTuTu also shared that their upcoming V9 benchmark will feature improved anti-cheating features, and even trigger penalties like score deductions.

 

Realme : AnTuTu Scores Real, Will No Longer Using AnTuTu?

Realme CMO Xu Qi Chase quickly shot back a response to AnTuTu’s expose.

If we understand this correctly, he is insisting that the Realme GT scores are accurate, and announcing that Realme will no longer use the AnTuTu Benchmark results for future Realme smartphones.

 

What Does Realme GT Cheating Mean For Potential Customers?

If AnTuTu allegations are true, this is a serious blow to Realme’s credibility.

It became a fast-rising brand by borrowing the Xiaomi model of offering a ton of features at very low prices.

The fact that Realme has a flagship smartphone powered by the latest Snapdragon 888 SoC should be a testament to how far it came, so quickly.

Yet it appears that they would go way beyond aggressive pricing and other usual tactics to win market share.

Potential customers (and other benchmark developers) will now wonder – if the Realme GT was caught cheating in AnTuTu, could it also be cheating in other benchmarks?

Even worse – what other Realme smartphones employ such tactics to obtain higher than normal scores? This will be a real PR headache.

We should point out though that benchmark cheating is not limited to smartphone brands. Even MediaTek was caught cheating in 8 of their chipsets, involving more than 50 smartphones from Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo and yes, Realme too.

Recommended : MediaTek Benchmark Cheating : What Happened So Far

 

AnTuTu Expose Of Realme GT Cheating

Here was what AnTuTu posted in their Weibo post, with our English translation below :

realme真我GT上市前,官方曾公布过高达76万以上的安兔兔测试成绩,对此我们也曾提出过质疑,但至今并未得到realme方面的具体回应。

当时我们也已承诺,待真我GT上市后会购入这款机型进行相关测试。今天这份下架说明,则是在我们购入量产机,并实际测试后所作出的决定。

我们所购的这台真我GT于3月10日首发当天,在欢太商城购入,其存储配置为12+256GB。

通过多次测试,这台真我GT在安兔兔V8版本中均为75万分左右的成绩,在目前在售搭载骁龙888平台的机型中,已经达到了非常出色的水准。但根据我们在对其测试过程中所进行的数据分析发现,这并非真实实力的体现,而是通过作弊等手段所取得。

通过我们的验证,真我GT在CPU多线程测试中存在线程延迟的情况,通过系统拦截线程的方案,将多线程测试的部分线程尽可能调度到大核上运行,导致测试成绩更高。

这种做法已经背离了安兔兔测试的初衷,多线程测试所考察的是多线程并发的处理器多核性能,并不是为了考察大核在连续运行测试时候的性能表现。

另外在UX测试的JPG解码项目中,我们发现真我GT跑分时将安兔兔测试的解码图片进行了修改,出现了大量马赛克。使用马赛克色块替换原有图片细节可以显著降低图片质量,从而解码速度也会更快,所以才有了更高的分数。但这样做明显违背了图片解码测试的目的。

综上所述,安兔兔方面决定下架realme真我GT的跑分成绩三个月,如未来realme方面能够修改上述问题,三个月后会重新计入相关榜单,如拒不修改则将其永久下架。

在即将到来的V9版本中,安兔兔将进一步优化防作弊方案,例如出现作弊情况会引发扣分等一些处罚方式。

Before the realme GT went on the market, the official announcement of the Antutu test results of more than 760,000. We questioned this, but so far we have not received a specific response from realme.

At that time, we also promised that we will purchase this model to test after the Realme GT launched. Today’s removal instructions were made after we purchased the mass production device and actually tested it.

The Realme GT we bought was purchased on the Huantai Mall on the day of its debut on March 10th, and its storage configuration is 12+256GB.

After many tests, this realme GT scored about 750,000 points in the AnTuTu V8 version, and it has reached a very good level among the models currently on sale with the Snapdragon 888 platform. But according to the data analysis we conducted during the testing process, we found that this is not a manifestation of true strength, but obtained through cheating and other means.

Through our verification, Realme GT used thread delays in the CPU multi-thread test. Through the system interception of threads, some threads of the multi-thread test are scheduled to run on large cores as much as possible, resulting in higher test results.

This approach has deviated from the original intention of the AnTuTu test. The multi-threaded test examines the multi-threaded concurrent processor multi-core performance, not to examine the performance of the large core during continuous running tests.

In addition, in the JPG decoding project of the UX test, we found that the decoded pictures of the Antutu test were modified during the real GT running, and a lot of mosaics appeared. Using mosaic color blocks to replace the original picture details can significantly reduce the quality of the picture, and thus the decoding speed will be faster, so it has a higher score. But doing so obviously violates the purpose of the picture decoding test.

To sum up, AnTuTu decided to remove the realme GT’s running scores for three months. If realme can modify the two behaviours, it will be included in the relevant list again in three months. If it refuses to modify it, it will. be banned permanently.

In the upcoming V9 version, AnTuTu will further optimize the anti-cheating program. For example, cheating will trigger some penalties such as deductions.

 

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