I was on my way to help pump gas at our store (we're full service for gas, no extra charge). I passed by a local foreign-owned Jet-Pep station that had its big billboard prices down. I decided to pull in and see what he was charging. At 12 noon, he was charging $4.65 a gallon for reg. unleaded. We were at $3.89 all day (still are as I type this at 11:17 CDT). He was gouging. So, I rolled down my window. Place was jumping b/c it has a reputation as being a cheap place to buy gas, which it is (ethanol based fuel, off brand, etc.). People weren't even paying attention when I yelled, "Hey, is charging $4.65 for a gallon of regular?"
"Yeah," they all responded (about 5 customers at different pumps). "Well, he's gouging you then because Shelton's Jif-E-Mart down here is at $3.89 and JT Quick Stop back in Decatur is at $3.59 and I know because I left there not 10 minutes ago!"
"Really?!?"
"Yeah."
They all started hanging up pumps.
I went to our store and told my brother. Later, he went through and did the same thing!!!!! I've always used that little place as a backup for my own gas or drink or whatever because I wanted to be one of the folks who treated these Arab guys with some support. Not those guys, not anymore. They were gouging. They remained higher throughout the day, going up to $4.89 later, when everyone else within 5 miles (including stores inside our city limits that have to charge an additional nickel municipal tax per gallon). We told our customers today to look around and see who was charging those kinds of prices and to remember us.
State troopers were cruising parking lots and writing down prices. I hope they get these gougers.
To give you and idea of how busy we were:
We have full time pumper guys. 2 old guys, 2 high school guys and one guy who's just a permanent fixture so we work him and pay him.
They work 1 at a time. Today, we had 5 of us out there pumping gas and could hardly keep up. We had one person at each pump station (4 stations with a pump on each side for a total of 8 gasoline pumps, excluding diesel of which we have 4 diesel and 1 off-road dyed diesel). We had one person on our walkie talkie calling into the cashier which pumps were paying inside or paying outside. We almost doubled our busiest day ever prior to today. Our cashier was .05% short in her drawer. .05% is astoundingly good and triple astounding under the circumstances she had to work today.
Now, we'll pay for it next week because chances are we won't get any more gas (they put 3000 gallons in tonight, but we went through that much in 4 hours today) until next Thursday, we're told. So, as successful as we were in meeting our customers' needs today, next week is going to be painfully off because of gas shortages.
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