the .9 petrol and diesel rip off

janhsmn

I am sure this will have been covered before, but i couldnt find it.

I sat down today and worked out the true price of my fuel. I put 38.04 litres of unleaded fuel in at a cost of 114.9 per litre, if you work that out it comes to £43.70.79 which the petrol station conveniently rounded up to 43.71. I did a similar thing the other day and i was done out of 0.25 of a pence. Now it may not seem a lot but if you work out how much fuel a petrol station sells in a day and the number of combinations when they are winning it adds up to a whole lot of dosh. I wonder what would happen if I said i was only paying £43.70 as there is no such thing as a .79 of a pence. surely this is some sort of theft/fraud under the sale of goods act. In nearly all cases they are overcharging.

Has anyone done anything about this, or challenged it etc. I would love to know.

Jan

espresso

janhsmn wrote: »

I am sure this will have been covered before, but i couldnt find it.

I sat down today and worked out the true price of my fuel. I put 38.04 litres of unleaded fuel in at a cost of 114.9 per litre, if you work that out it comes to £43.70.79 which the petrol station conveniently rounded up to 43.71. I did a similar thing the other day and i was done out of 0.25 of a pence. Now it may not seem a lot but if you work out how much fuel a petrol station sells in a day and the number of combinations when they are winning it adds up to a whole lot of dosh. I wonder what would happen if I said i was only paying £43.70 as there is no such thing as a .79 of a pence. surely this is some sort of theft/fraud under the sale of goods act. In nearly all cases they are overcharging.

Has anyone done anything about this, or challenged it etc. I would love to know.

Jan

However if you had bought 38.08 litres at 114.9p per litre, you would have been charged £43.75 and would owe the petrol station 0.392 pence!

Think that you need to get a life!

LandyAndy

janhsmn wrote: »

I am sure this will have been covered before,

Jan

It has, ad nauseam.

It's right up there with 'boycott Shell and BP'.

Hintza

Oh dear...........at least it's different to boycotting BP et al.

LandyAndy

But for what it's worth.

Suppose petrol was 115p per litre and you bought 38.04litres (your example), the true cost would be £43.746. You would be charged £43.75 if rounding up occurs as you describe. What are you going to complain about now?

flyingscotno1

espresso wrote: »

However if you had bought 38.08 litres at 114.9p per litre, you would have been charged £43.75 and would owe the petrol station 0.392 pence!

Think that you need to get a life!

Yep it doesn't really matter for such a small amount- just rounding. I'm sure all these fuel stations are creaming millions on such margins!

CHR15

I could think of another 5 posters on MSE whose names I would like to put forward as your colleagues.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

janhsmn wrote: »

I am sure this will have been covered before, but i couldnt find it.

I sat down today and worked out the true price of my fuel. I put 38.04 litres of unleaded fuel in at a cost of 114.9 per litre, if you work that out it comes to £43.70.79 which the petrol station conveniently rounded up to 43.71. I did a similar thing the other day and i was done out of 0.25 of a pence. Now it may not seem a lot but if you work out how much fuel a petrol station sells in a day and the number of combinations when they are winning it adds up to a whole lot of dosh. I wonder what would happen if I said i was only paying £43.70 as there is no such thing as a .79 of a pence. surely this is some sort of theft/fraud under the sale of goods act. In nearly all cases they are overcharging.

Has anyone done anything about this, or challenged it etc. I would love to know.

Jan

Actually I think its more likely that for your £43.71 you received 43.71/1.149 litres of fuel, and were therefore not overcharged. For instance, if you pay the cashier £1.15, you would actually have received ever so slightly more than a litre.

DaveMacD

It's a it like the old argument about the 99p tacked onto a price. It's partly psychological, since during a quick glance at a price board, your brain only pays attention to the bits before the decimal point

vansboy

Yes the fuel companies do have an advantage, as they WILL earn an 'extra' amount on each transaction, but their pumps will be calibrated in a manner acceptable to Trading Standards - so you could always ask them for an explanation as to how this is 'fair' to the consumer.

What I've never understood, is how they can blatantly advertise a product for sale - ie 1 litre of fuel - for an amount in our currency that it simply isn't possible to be purchased for.

Legal implications dictate that the signage is 'an offer to barter', so you could 'barter' the retailer for a better price.

The pumps will also have disclaimers advising a MINIMUM amount of fuel is despatched & that may be another get out, for them.

VB

Young_Pretender

Oh god!
I hope the OP has never considered the implications of the accuracy of the meters on the pumps!