Thread: It pays to double check!!!

Originally Posted by isuzurover

I sent an email to fuelwatch (wa govt thing). They emailed me back to say they will be investigating it as a possible breach of "regulation 3 of the petroleum pricing regulations".

They also said that in WA all servos have to notify fuelwatch of their prices before 6am each day and keep that price for 24 hrs.

So - if you notice a WA servo changing their prices in the middle of the day - that is also illegal!!!

nope its not...

If they tell fuelwatch their price for today (at 0555) will be 123.4cpl but they are at 123.3cpl they dont have to change thier signage/price before 6am... from the time they change their prices they must not rise above that price for 24 hours but may lower it.


What they cant do is notify at 0555 that they will sell fuel at 123.4cpl when they are at 123.5cpl and not have that price in effect before 6am nor can they raise there price above what they tell pricewatch.

Ive raised this question with dads neighbours before and the way its explained makes sense to me and if it was ever enforced correctly seems to be the right way to go.

You have to wonder how often by law they must get the pumps calibrated and when was the last time they did.

At some of our sites that we support overseas (think it is malaysia) the customers can demand a pump test at any time.

This means that they get the attendant to pump out say 10 litres of fuel into a measuring device and prove to the customer that it is infact 10 litres.

The sites here do perform these tests but I am unsure about the legal side of it in terms of how often.

The local independent servo where I buy biodiesel told me that it takes about six weeks for a rep from the one company that takes care of all of the pumps to come out and fix them.

Cheers
Simon

As mentioned above, if the price of fuel goes up they have to change it on the board then the pump, if the price is coming down they do the bowser first then the sign. Well this is how it was done when i worked at the servo over xmas a couple of years ago.

My guess is the price has had a rise and they have been to busy to change the sign so they simply changed the bowser thinking no one would notice, i would have filled the car up before i went in to complain.

is that the way it works, if its wrong you get it for free? i would have thought you get the lower?

eitherway nice pickup.

i'll keep an eye on the dodgy b@stards.

They give it to you for the lower price, be it the price on the price board or the bowser.

It is the same as in a shop for example. If the shelf price is lower than what it comes up on the POS then you are entitled to get it for the lower shelf price.

Some companies have the 'get it free' policy such as supermarkets. The other night I bought something that had a ticketed shelf price of $3.90, the operator couldn't scan the item so looked it up and manually typed in $4.90.

I pointed out that it was incorrect, she got rather agressive about it and in the end sent someone to check. I was correct and she gave it to me for free. Wouldn't she have been better off taking my word for the price and only giving me a $1 off?

Pricing, and what it means, is one of those grey areas. The price on the shelf, bowser, sign etc is not a fixed thing - it's an offer, like the price of a car in a dealer's yard. You are free to make a different offer, they are at liberty to raise or lower their offer.

With the sensitivity of petrol pricing this may be different in some States, but AFAIK the legalities in Qld are the same as any other purchase, which is as I say above. In short - they can charge either higher or lower than the advertised price, you can offer more or less than the advertised price, they don't have to sell to you.

As sale is a negotiation, though mostly people just pay what's on offer.

It is bad business, though, to charge more than the advertised price, and I think that having filled up in the reasonable belief of a particular price you would have a case if they charged something different. The trouble is that they did have the correct price on the bowser. As was initially said, check!