In an investigation, Fairfax Media revealed that some Caltex workers, mostly international students from Indian subcontinent have been paid as little as $12 an hour.
Caltex, a national franchise network that has more than 650 stores is now in damage control after these allegations.
A Fairfax Media investigation revealed that the Fair Work Ombudsman also gave Caltex advanced warning that it was going to raid its service stations across the country.
It has been revealed that an internal investigation into Rana family, one of its largest franchisee groups with stores in NSW and South Australia has some eye-opening findings.
Investigations exposed the pay records from Aurangzieb Rana's Caltex sites paying as little as $13 dollars an hour, in cash.
'We stand there for eight-hour and 10-hour shifts and we are getting nothing,” said Syed Aqeel, an accounting student from Pakistan. He worked for the Grange Caltex station operated by Aurangzieb Rana.
“I used to do overnight shifts and if a customer drove away without paying for petrol, the franchisee made me pay for it,” said Syed.
Caltex has confirmed that it had doubled the number of stores it was investigating for wage fraud to 50 sites, which include 27 connected to the Rana family.
Aurangzieb Rana has denied allegations of wage fraud and said, "This is totally incorrect and wrong ... We comply with the law in regards to wages."
Caltex chief executive Julian Segal said the company had ramped up its investigation into the franchise network of 650 sites to stamp out wage fraud.
"We are disgusted and we will act on any unlawful behavior, including termination of franchise agreements," he said.
According to The Age report, Caltex refused to be drawn on whether it would consider setting up a compensation scheme for victims, similar to 7-Eleven, which has so far paid more than 800 workers $42 million.
On Thursday Caltex instructed franchisees to publicly display a hotline for workers to come forward and lodge a complaint if they had been underpaid.
