Possible 5p-10p/litre petrol discount

clearvisor

MSE_Martin wrote:

How?

A consumer scheme's being set up to use bulk buying consumer power to negotiate a big petrol discount from a major retailer. You simply register for a free card that allows you to get the discount.

This already happens in the corporate market with fuel cards, so its great to see the consumer version.

When does it start?

That's the catch-22. To get the card up and running a critical mass of people are needed. Having said that, the number needed is apparently 10s of thousands, yet with 350,000 recieving my email tip, I hope we can help get close to that. (im not linked with the scheme, i just support the concept)

Who runs it and how much do they make?

Fuel campaigner Ben Scammel runs the http://www.pipelinecard.org/ website (note if the site doesn't work, that may be due to the huge traffic following the email tip send, so try later). He says the card will be completely free, but of course organisation costs need to be met, yet this will come out of the discount negotiated, as will his profit I suspect. Not that it's an issue with a free card anyway.

How realistic is this?

The proposition is a good one and Ben claimed to have already negotiated the discount and have it up and running, just needs enough people now.

How safe is this?

You're going to register for a webstie. Ben's reputation is as a fuel campaigner. I hope it is legit, I don't know though simply because the full details can't be released during the negotiation period. Therefore I cannot put a full "MSE says YES" stampa of approval on it, however it appears to be legit (you need to make that call yourself).

Therefore I prefer to ask the question what can you lose. The site only requires your name and email address - which is a good start (no credit card details are asked for). This means the worst that can happen is it spams you with sales pitches, though that seems unlikely. The real most likely 'bad event' is it doesn't get off the ground and nothing happens. So nothing lost. Hence I've registered personally. Cross your fingers.

Once the scheme is up and running, I will take another look at it then and re-evaluate it based on the concrete details.

What to do

Go to http://www.pipelinecard.org/ and sign up. (note if the site doesn't work, that may be due to the huge traffic following the email tip send, so try later)


Martin

Please feel free to discuss the scheme below


PS Ben is also a site user so i've invited him to discuss on this thread too


Update Some Further Thoughts 22 November

A few further points. One thing I noted on the site is there's no 'unsubscribe' option, I've pointed this out and been told it will come in a day or two.

It's also easy to question the economics of this - where will the 5p-10p come from as margins aren't that large (though it should be remembered part of fuel tax is in the form of VAT which reduces with price). I think 5p is feasible, yet it may be 5p off average fuel prices not 5p off supermarket prices. However all this is sadly just supposition at the moment, to see if it'll be any good, we need to wait for the numbers.

However as this site only requires a registering of interest and no payment, there is very little to lose. A fuel discount card with 100,000 users would be a powerful consumer weapon and bring prices down for many. Fingers crossed....

Just had the following reply:-Thank you for registering with Pipeline and demonstrating your support
for lower fuel prices.

I am pleased to say that the campaign is making great progress. We are
in active discussions with a major fuel retailer to negotiate discounts
on petrol across the whole of the UK. This will be achieved through a
special discount card which will be issued free of charge to all our
members as soon as the group is large enough.

We will be posting out occasional updates to members in the next few
weeks but meanwhile, if you have any questions about Pipeline, do feel
free to email me.

It may take me a while to get back to you, and your question may have
been answered elsewhere, so please keep take a look at the FAQ on the
website http://www.pipelinecard.org/ before you write.

If you have a website, I would encourage you to link to the Pipeline
site and to tell others about what we are doing. The more members we
have, the better the discount we can negotiate.

With best wishes,

Ben Scammell

TOAD_3

hello all thanks martin for everything one of the threads i see on this topic was saying about a price checker for your local area well this is the price checker i use to find the best price each day
http://www.petrolprices.com
they do a search up to a 20 mile radius for petrol prices form your given town

Wig

superfurry wrote:

Only question - we're not going to buy more fuel are we, so what's the advantage to the retailer/wholesaler ?? - why the discount ?

This is likely to be buying from the wholesaler. The wholesaler will sell petrol to us at a rate above what the sell it to the retailers for but below what the average retail is. So they will make more money.

If it is from the retailer then the extra business may make it worth it for them. The discount has less scope to be half decent though.

Paul_Herring

Ben&#64 wrote: »

Thank you to all of you who have signed up. Our membership is growing and we are really grateful to Martin for his support.

Nice spin. Going back a few posts:

Martin wrote:

The scheme does not have my 'thumbs up' i hope that is clear. It has my 'worth signing up to and re-evaluating once the full details come through'

dodo

Just found this and have signed up.....sounds great if it comes to life!!!!

Butterfli

4 cars in the family - 3 drivers.
Just signed us all up so finger's crossed!

Butterfli

mycar37

Thanks Martin. I have signed up and will have my wife sign up also.
MJH

Xtreme

Thnx I hope this gets up and rnning soon ..so come on people get everyone signed up !!!!

dsmyth2

Would it possible for Pipeline to produce a status on their website to show progress against the target membership (this could just be done as a percentage if they dont want to divulge actual targets) updated regularly to give potential members some expectations as to likely timescales?

mad_cash_cow

Has anyone had trouble with this? Is it just a coincidence that I signed up on 23/11 & my spam level has rocketed today (25/11)??