BP petrol stations: worrying cases of overcharging.

taxiphil

Hi all, great forum. Motorists who buy their fuel from BP may wish to know about some incidents in the Greater Manchester area where the litre price on the pump has not matched up with the actual litre price that appears on the receipt. For example the pump says you've been charged 89.9p, but the receipt says 90.9p.

Our taxi firm has experienced this happening on a number of occasions at 3 different BP garages. There's even a website about it -www.bpripoff.co.uk - which has pictures of the pump and receipt prices which don't correspond. Even when people report it to BP, sometimes it doesn't get rectified. Not very good for an oil company that made £11 billion in profit last year!

They're probably getting away with this far more than they should simply because 99% of people would never think to check the price per litre on the receipt.

rdwarr

Have you talked to BP about this? I do occasional consultancy work for them and it's most likely an oversight due to local staff issues. Customer perception is very important to them even though the retail business contributes very little to the profits.
And it's against the law to use profits from Exploration to subsidise Retail.

moonrakerz

Why has no one gone to Trading Standards ?

taxiphil

moonrakerz wrote:

Why has no one gone to Trading Standards ?

It's been reported to Trading Standards on several occasions but they're incredibly ineffective.

rdwarr

The "protest website" can be an effective tool as long as you maintain contact with the management within the company, who will normally genuinely want to help. I even did one myself once (see here if interested) and had a very good outcome

cougar_3

rdwarr wrote:

The "protest website" can be an effective tool as long as you maintain contact with the management within the company, who will normally genuinely want to help. I even did one myself once (see here if interested) and had a very good outcome

1999 - think all the domains will have gone except for .outermongolia nowadays!

rdwarr

Trouble is I went in bigtime after that one (which I did transfer to Toys'R'Us) and spent about £3000 on names I was sure would make a profit
I still have some of them but am about £3000 down.

taxiphil

Just to update the situation, the police are (finally) investigating a number of BP garages in the north west for organised fraud - that is to say charging a different litre price to the litre price quoted on the pump and sign. The true price is only mentioned on the receipt.

Another important reminder to motorists using BP garages: Check your receipt... look at the price per litre... does it match the price on the pump? (more info at www.bpripoff.co.uk)