Is this sharp practice?

[Katharine]

I was at an unfamiliar Shell station the other day and noticed that diesel was 126.9 which is 2p a litre cheaper than at home. As I needed to fill my car I drove up to the empty pump and just as I was about to start filling the car noticed that the screen showed the price as 132.9 not the 126.9 I expected. I had a closer look to see that it was "New Diesel" not just plain old diesel. The cheaper diesel was not available at that pump. It was not the easiest manouvre to get the car to one of the pumps offering the cheaper stuff but I did it, I wasn't going to pay an extra 6p a litre. I felt that the New Diesel could have been flagged up better and I wonder how many had filled their cards with it intending to buy the other stuff.

[gma]

Same things happening around here with unleaded and premium unleaded, especially the card only stations - once you've put your card in you can't change the pump!

[sejintenej]

I was at an unfamiliar Shell station the other day and noticed that diesel was 126.9 which is 2p a litre cheaper than at home. As I needed to fill my car I drove up to the empty pump and just as I was about to start filling the car noticed that the screen showed the price as 132.9 not the 126.9 I expected. I had a closer look to see that it was "New Diesel" not just plain old diesel. The cheaper diesel was not available at that pump. I felt that the New Diesel could have been flagged up better and I wonder how many had filled their cards with it intending to buy the other stuff.

Pretty common in the UK. Caveat Emptor (legalese for "Buyer Beware"). I suspect it is simply bad design like so many things in the UK rather than intended.
Over here the filling tubes are usually side by side and well marked. My local garage only has ordinary diesel and commercial. You cannot get the commercial pipe into the fuel tank of a car (it is too big) whilst on the ordinary car diesel instead of the usual beginning noise and 0.00 currency units you get a slow flashing warning that you have selected diesel for several seconds before the pump will work.

[blondie95]

Its amazing the difference in pertol stations near each other-the one at end of road is consistently 2p cheaper than any other and the stations near work which are 10 miles away are about 5p more exspensive.

[AndrewH]

I've had the same thing, saw the price of Diesel, pulled up at the pump only to see a higher price for "special" Diesel. I think that I put about 3l in, just enough to make sure that I would make it to the supermarket!

[AndrewH]

Its amazing the difference in pertol stations near each other-the one at end of road is consistently 2p cheaper than any other and the stations near work which are 10 miles away are about 5p more exspensive.

I have a friend, who inbetween doing other things, does the odd shift at a filling station/mini-supermarket. This has now been taken over by Tesco (who charge normal supermarket prices), but with the previous owners they apparently had a policy of being about 5p/l more than most of the other outlets. It could be the first filling station that you would find after leaving the M4 and heading into town, especially if you don't know that area.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Petrol prices in South Oz have been steadily rising for some time now, and are predicted to reach $2/L by the end of the year.

The two largest supermarket chains are in cahoots with BP (Woolworths) and Caltex (Coles) - spend over $30 at the supermarket and get 4c/L off your petrol. Sadly whenever my gauge is on red, I've gone out of my way, and I'm urging the clown car to make it to a BP garage so that I can save enough to get, perhaps, a newspaper 'for free' with my petrol savings, I find a queue of cars, and, being the busy (impatient?) person that I am, I then head off somewhere else and pay full price.

For some reason, petrol is always cheaper on Tuesdays in Adelaide. Not sure how this ties in with world oil prices, or how garages get away with changing the price so regularly. We wouldn't stand for it if supermarkets played the same game with prices of milk, bread, even, dare I say it, wine and ciggies.

xx

[blondie95]

I have a shell garage round the corner from me which this afternoon still had fuel as did Morrisons. I have a qaurter of a tank left and will fill up as normal tomorrow!

The media are potentially making it worse by saying fuel could run out on monday etc etc

[Katharine]

The Shell station in town ran out of Diesel yesterday, I had a full tank so have not looked elsewhere.

[Katharine]

I think the fact that both types of Derv were available on the forecourt protects them legally. They should be displaying the price for both really, as it is misleading.Was the pump actually marked "New Diesel"?
I had a case of a price difference working in the customers' favour owing to head office lowering the price online and not informing us. Very few complaints were heard.

Yes the pump was marked New Diesel. I accept that they were legally correct, but I still thing it was misleading. I didn't know of the existence of New Diesel as a concept - if it has been advertised a lot on the TV we don't have one, and don't read the motoring press.

Before now I have been roundly abused for telling someone she had given me the wrong change - when she had given me change for a £20 note and I had paid with a tenner. It took all my perseverance to tell her that, I really did wonder why I had bothered.

[englishangel]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7456458.stm

Nuff said

[englishangel]

This was one garage owner in Devon who thought he would ration petrol by price. His price will drop back to 'normal' now deliveries are going out. I just wonder how many customers he will get.

[cj]

All our local garages are either low on fuel or have now run out and there is now talk of another 4 day strike over this weekend. £1.99 at Exwick does seem to be taking advantage of the situation. Rather embarrassingly the Morrison's in Tavistock filled their unleaded tanks with diesel last week and now have to cough up for the damage to the cars that filled up mistakenly.

[blondie95]

I think some were charging £1.99 to try and prevent people from filling up completly and panick buying...just get what you need to get you till tuesday.

I see they have resolved their dispute so no strike this weekend

[Jo]

I think some were charging £1.99 to try and prevent people from filling up completly and panick buying...just get what you need to get you till tuesday.

Well that's what they said - but they're hardly going to admit to blatant profiteering, are they? I hope when supplies are back to normal that everyone gives them a very wide berth and they come to regret their nasty little piece of mischief.