Why gas stations won't tell you price of fuel?

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I recently called Shell and Chevron local gas stations and asked them the price of gas. Both refused and told me that it was against the law. Is there any merit to this? I found it suspect. I know there are websites now for this. But,......
 
Not against the law but maybe against their company policy. They probably do it because competition is so fierce among stations. Plus not much loyalty to one station. If one can save a penny per gallon by going across the street then most drivers will. It's a commodity.

Gasbuddy works well for online prices. I recently saw one gas place that had their gas prices on their website.

Not giving out prices over the phone helps to keep phone calls to a minimum. Otherwise they would be getting hundreds of calls per day for the price. Then when they raise the price customers get mad and complain when they arrive and the price went up .20.
 
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I use Gas Buddy often and think its a great App.
I Provide a Shell fuel card in all my fleet vehicles and these are tied in with the Shell App. This Shell App has a station locator and it even uses the Gas Buddy software when displaying pricing.

The problem with GasBuddy is it is not always up to date and I have found here in FL that prices reported only 1-2 hours ago are tyically lower than actual at a few local stations. It makes me wonder if station managers are using GasBuddy as a marketing tool?

Since I usually fill up with around 30 gallons, I will often call the station telephone number displayed on the Gas Buddy App to confirm prices when route planning. I have had a similar experience with certain stations refusing to provide the pump price but not often. with Shell it is not a corporate policy but the discretion of individual station managers. I think it might lose them some business since some drivers will just go to a ststion that offers this courtesy. I know I do.
 
They dont want you calling every day, and asking for the price. And all your neighbors calling every day, and asking for the price. A lesson learned YEARS ago by gas stations, as its quite annoying to field 50 calls a day of people just asking for the price. So they just tell you its not their policy to give the price over the phone.
 
Originally Posted By: Neely97
Get Gas Buddy.
Many retailers will not give prices over the phone.


^^^ This!
Gasbuddy is great for pricing info, although there are other options.
The thing you have to watch is the age of the price postings.
Something from an hour ago is probably good while something from early this morning may no longer be valid.
Some areas are always cheaper than others, and it pays a little to learn this information when traveling.
Of course no gas station is going to give prices over the phone. Their convenience stores are typically very busy and they don't have an excess of personnel on hand to answer the phone to give out prices.
 
I had worked at a corporate gas station. We were to do a gas price survey of a couple stations nearby and had to call it in to see whether to raise or lower prices.
 
Originally Posted By: a1mfw
I had worked at a corporate gas station. We were to do a gas price survey of a couple stations nearby and had to call it in to see whether to raise or lower prices.


Now some just use gas buddy, or do the survey on the way into work.
 
Over here all service stations have large signs up so you can read the prices as you go past - 91 and diesel, they don't give a price for 95 because not many use it. Uusually they are pretty close in an area, but in town the Mobil is 2 cents cheaper than Z on the main road.
 
I doubt many people would call them in this day and age.

What I suspect is that if competitors call each other, that looks a heckuva lot like price-fixing. That is a felony. Years ago, an investigator for the state Attorney General happend to be buying gas just as the call was made.....They got out of it, but it was a real mess.

Competitors shouldn't be talking about price with each other, period.
 
Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: a1mfw
I had worked at a corporate gas station. We were to do a gas price survey of a couple stations nearby and had to call it in to see whether to raise or lower prices.


Now some just use gas buddy, or do the survey on the way into work.


I'm a grocery cashier, but for the last 6 months or so have been "filling in" at our gas station, as they've been chronically short handed.(basically as soon as they think they're hired up, the newbies quit within their first few weeks. and it seems to happen in 3's...)

we have to do a competitor price check twice daily, between 6-9a, and 1-3p. we have a defined list of 4 stations, none more than 4 miles away, but it's an 11 mi loop.(get paid mileage), takes 20-30 min to drive the loop.
we are allowed to match the lowest competitor UP to 5 cents. beyond 5 cents, decision is up to corporate. station 1 is 6 cents below us, and station 2 is 5 cents below us? up to corporate. we can only match the LOWEST, not the second lowest...

doing the check before work is highly frowned upon. that is "working off the clock", which puts the union in a tizzy.

we do use gasbuddy, but not to DO the price check,(Corp. insist we do the physical onsite reporting) I update/report prices at each station as i'm doing the price check.

it also has to do with the instability of the gas price in the market. we had 3 price changes in my 8 hr shift yesterday.
we started @$2.30, morning check had a couple stations @ $2.29, match that. 30 min later, Corp sends down another change, down to $2.27. go out for the afternoon check, one competitor is $2.25, match that.

if we tell you it's price a.bc, it could be different before you get there. we can give the price, but must strongly emphasize that that is the price NOW, and is subject to change.
 
I'm not sure it is worth the effort to save a few cents over the convenience of going where you want or is on your way. My brother will drive across town to save 3 cents a gallon when his fillup is less than 20 gallons. probably cost more than 60 cents for the round trip across town but he doesn't listen to reason.
 
OK, how about a little tangent? Who is flamingly tired of the 0.9 cents that gas prices still end in? That is a vestige that needs to be retired.
 
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
OK, how about a little tangent? Who is flamingly tired of the 0.9 cents that gas prices still end in? That is a vestige that needs to be retired.

Yes.

And, You'd think people would go for the lowest cost but thats not what Ive witnessed. Theres an area in town where the highway and interstate 90 intersect, and there are 5 gas stations.
Conoco
Texaco
Chevron
Shell (also a truck stop)
and a no-name.
The no name is cheapest and gets a lot of business. The Chevron and Shell are next to each other and price match. Conoco is usually pretty close to them, and the Texaco is always at least 10 cents higher, but does good business.
Ive seen similar things elsewhere, with Chevron stations doing good business but across the street is a Shell or Conoco 10 cents cheaper.
Maybe brand loyalty is more of an effect than thought?

Also, I was cruising through GasBuddy while I was in Seattle a few weeks ago, and came across a pretty cheap Arco station. They are typically the cheapest, but they were THE cheapest in like the whole of King county.
I was looking through the comments, and a lot of people were complaining about false prices. They were making the supposition the owner or a employee was making false price reports on the app to drive business.
"Well, Im already here, might as well buy some gas."
So, I wouldn't go out of my way to use a Gasbuddy reported station.
 
I use Gas Buddy a lot but have seen recently that the stations who report their own price (GB_Direct, report a higher price than what they post on the signs. This may be just one chain locally but they do it all the time.

Many GB_Direct reports dropped off this summer. I wonder if Gas Buddy didn't give them some grief over not reporting their own prices?
 
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