petrol stations

Ectophile

swingaloo wrote: »

On the subject of fuel, why is it the only thing that is ever sold at .9 instead of being rounded up. Why not say 64p instead of 63.9 just because it sounds cheaper. You cannot possibly pay .9p.
Imagine Tesco pricing biscuits at 34.9p a packet. Why do petrol stations manage to do it?

Because they sell petrol in multiples of 0.01 litre. You can't buy 10.01 packets of biscuits, but you can buy 10.01 litres of petrol.

Even if they priced petrol in whole pennies, you could still be left with an odd fraction of a penny to round off when it comes to pay.

swingaloo

But whether you bought a litre or 0.6 of a litre wouldn't matter, the price could still be 64p per litre rather than 63.9.
You could use the same argument for anything which has be weighed or measured.

A joint of beef may be £8 per kilo but you would pay according to the weight you bought. It would never be £7.99.9p per kilo!

danothy

Kite2010 wrote: »

A good trick if you hit say £20.01, give the cashier £30 and say you have no change.

9 times out of 10 the cashier will give you pay the £10 note, although you get the odd silly cashier giving you pay £9.99 in coinage

I've had more luck just handing over a tenner when I've put £10.01 worth of fuel in the car and saying nothing ... I had to resort to a shrug once, but I guess it's not worth the bother to them. I don't go over on purpose and it doesn't happen often though.

swingaloo wrote: »

A joint of beef may be £8 per kilo but you would pay according to the weight you bought. It would never be £7.99.9p per kilo!

That's because you can't have two decimal points in a number ...

DCFC79

Never had a problem with getting petrol at an exact amount eg £30.

Gilbert2

Robin_TBW wrote: »

Not found this problem myself. Use Pay at Pump though so wouldn't matter anyway. Surprised by how many people queue up to pay when it's so much quicker to do it yourself.

Unfortunately, I have to get receipts for my fuel and very often the dispenser is faulty, ie the staff can't be bothered to put a new roll of paper in, and I end up in a queue anyway to get one.

Tesco are the worst offenders for this, closely followed by Morrisons.

Asda rarely suffer this problem so I fail to see why the other two do, it's essentially the same system.