petrol Pump Thievery

Eurorunner

OK, heres the deal. Theres a guy who opened a few months ago - had heard that he was charging a different price at the pumps to what was advertised on the sign. For this reason, i stayed well away from him - even when he started advertising the cheapest unleaded in town. Today, an relative got petrol there - the sign said unleaded = 85.9 - the pump said 85.9 - he proceeded to fill the tank - as the pump was switched on from inside, suddenly 95.?/ltr is displayed at the pump.


I want these ba$tards done. How can i set this up. Who do i contact. Who covers trading standards in Ireland?

I dont want to walk in and complain so that he can stop doing it for a while. I want him fined and written up in the local rag.

vinnyfitz

From the Director of Consumer Affairs website:

"The Retail Price (Diesel and Petrol) Display Order, 1997 requires that persons selling diesel and petrol products specify, in a prescribed manner, the price per litre being charged to the consumer for these commodities."

I suggest you and your relative get onto them with the precise details of the complaint and see what they say www.odca.ie after all they are obliged to pursue breaches of this order.


If you want to keep track of this try and speak to the head of enforcement unit No 1 - who seems from their website to be the person in charge of this sort of thing.

If you want to follow this up more PM me.

V

spongebob

I think that customs and excise in Galway may have a 'weights and measures' officer who can also advise on this kinda flummery. Petrol is highly exciseable so the customs would not be happy to hear that the figures on the amount of tax due to their department could be tampered with or that the figures may not reconcile between the forecourt systems and the retail systems inside, he must be cooking the VAT they are due at a minimum. Weds is the last day of the month (for VAT) so ring them early tomorrow.

Once customs and the odca nabe the prick between them you should then make sure that the oil company find out about it , they take a dim view of their reputation being abused, or the pumps that they supply being fiddled with, same thing in this case.

PM me if this guy is within 10 miles of Galway city

M

vinnyfitz

Muck is correct. Also the Excise guys probably have a much fitter and faster inspectorate at their disposal. Mind you I could not find a useful contact point on their website. Any suggestions anyone?

spongebob

Galway and Wesht Here

M

LFCFan

where is this petrol station? Maybe it would be a good idea to bring a camera and take a pic of the displayed price, the initial pump price and then the changed pump price. If you could do this I'd be willing to put it on RipOffIreland.Org.

Dr. Dre

This is probably one of those universal pumps, that have a diesel pump married to the same display, thus if someone used it last and were getting diesel then this would be left on the display and would only change as soon as they switched it on and it detected that the unleaded pump was in use now.

Sure its not a misunderstanding ?

Eurorunner

Feel a bit foolish as it seems i was misinformed:rolleyes:

Dropped in there today with a view to making that call with the number muck had suggested above once i had confirmed the rippoff...and err, well there was no laws being broken even if their pricings a bit off.

They had diesel displayed on the sign at the top as 85.9 with unleaded below it at 95.9 (most filling stations would have unleaded at the top but theres still no law breaking here). Then as Dr Dre suggested, the person that had told me this story yesterday wasnt concious of the fact that the previous customer had purchased diesel - hence the switch in rates as he filled up.

Apologies for the dramatics. At least we know who to contact if this does actually happen in future!

note to self - verify facts before shooting mouth off

Ripwave

Originally posted by Eurorunner
They had diesel displayed on the sign at the top as 85.9 with unleaded below it at 95.9 (most filling stations would have unleaded at the top but theres still no law breaking here).

That's getting to be a fairly common practice here in Dublin - the cheapest price at the top, which is all most people see as they drive past, is for the product that most people can't use. As you say, no law breaking, but definitely misleading.

John R

I would have thought the more likely method of ripping people off would be to adjust the pump to dispense less than it displays.

JHMEG

Holy f**k! 95.9 is still a complete ripoff!

alleepally

WHat I can't get my head around is how Tesco manage to sell petrol so cheap. What's the deal with that?

seamus

Originally posted by alleepally
WHat I can't get my head around is how Tesco manage to sell petrol so cheap. What's the deal with that?

Loss Leaders. They sell the petrol cheap to get people into th shop, where they may pruchase expensive impulse items.

It's a lot more effective than it sounds. A standard garage's cut on fuel is relatively small afaik.

JHMEG

If it's a loss leader, then why are the petrol stations within a mile of Tescon able to match the price? Loss leader = below cost selling, which is illegal.

The petrol stations themselves have a relatively small markup, but the pertol distributors (ie esso, texaco etc) have a bigger cut. And every petrol station has an individual deal and price with its petrol supplier...

sceptre

Originally posted by JHMEG
If it's a loss leader, then why are the petrol stations within a mile of Tescon able to match the price? Loss leader = below cost selling, which is illegal.

Below cost selling of petrol isn't illegal AFAIR. I'd be rather surprised if it was included in Dessie O'Malley's Grocery order.

Pataman

Tesco are doing the same as they did in England. They sell the petrol below cost for a few years, all the local petrol stations close down, then they put the prices back up again.

vinnyfitz

Sceptre is right. Petrol is not covered by the groceries order. But I don't think this is the issue.
Tesco buy their petrol from the normal petrol companies using reverse (electronic) auctions. (Or at least those Petrol companies who agree to play which, I understand, is not all of them.)

That is how they can sell it cheap - they squeeze the margin rather than selling below cost.

Pataman, you may be right about Tesco's long term plans. However,

1. I'm not sure that is a reason not to welcome their low prices
2. They will only put the price back up if they do acheive local monoply and given how slow people are to shop around for petrol and the openness of the market to other discount vendors such as Lidl I'm not too worried

exCrumlinBoyo

I hope you turn in this guy, because it greedy Bollixes like that who fook everything up for everything one else. Shop his balls in.

What you need to do, bring a camera with you to the shop and get petrol. Take a before pic and an after pic. Go to the herald or the Indo and tell them your story.

I would love to see this guys face when he see's his garage on the front page.