GALESBURG, Ill. - Karleena Kempf had a good system going: Visit her local gasoline station, fill up and drive away without paying. Seven times, this worked for her. On the eighth time, she finally got caught.

Part the reason it was so easy for her to steal fuel is that most gasoline retailers in the Midwest don??t have prepay pumps, the Peoria Journal Star reports. "On either coast, they [retailers] can??t believe the Midwest doesn??t have prepay," said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for NACS.

In 2010, pumps that did not require prepay had a 22 percent increase in gasoline theft. Lenard pointed out that prepay means the retailer pays more for credit-card transactions. Plus, drivers filling up and paying at the pump usually don??t come inside, where the retailer makes most of his profit. "That's how a convenience store gets inconvenient," said Lenard.

But pump-before-pay stations are more attractive for thieves. "There's a direct correction with a rise in price and rise in theft," said Lenard. "There's a lot of misdirected anger. There's a misconception that the corner store is profiting [from higher gasoline prices]."

Thieves have also gotten more sophisticated, such as covering the station??s satellite dish with foil to mess up the sending of electronic sales data. That way, the thieves can fill up multiple cars quickly without the cashiers knowing fuel is being stolen. Some stations have added lubricant to exterior walls and razor wire on their rooflines to deter access to the dishes.

Some crooks drive holes in fuel trucks ?" and sometimes cars ?" to siphon off their contents. Chicago-area thieves even took an entire gasoline pump, making off with more than $5,000 in fuel.