Drivers fume to attorney general: Gas prices ‘killing our pockets’
About 200 file complaints in 2 months about costs at pump
Despite widespread reduction in gas prices after the start of Connecticut's three-month gas tax holiday, drivers across the state remain frustrated with costs — especially those lingering above $4 a gallon — and they are making sure officials like Attorney General William Tong know about it.
A total of 200 consumer complaints related to gas prices were filed with Tong's office over the last two months, including numerous examples of residents requesting the state investigate filling stations for price gouging or refusing to drop prices after the 25-cent sales tax was suspended on April. 1.
While roughly 30 complaints dealt with specific allegations of stations continuing to collect the gas tax, the majority expressed more general frustrations with the price of gas.
“The Gas Prices have not gone down and this is ridiculous,” one resident wrote to Tong on April 4. “Please check this out. The owners are crooks and killing our pockets.”
Elizabeth Benton, a spokesperson with Tong's office, said Friday it's still too early to tell whether any retailers violated consumer protection laws. The attorney general's office has sent letters to 101 retailers seeking more information in response to complaints. The office has received 65 responses back with 41 matters closed and 24 under review.
The complaints target stations across the state, with some expressing frustration over issues that are not tied to the tax repeal.
A driver who went to a station on Marion Avenue in the Plantsville section of Southington around 2:30 p.m. on March 30, reported paying $4.09 a gallon to fill up their husband's
truck. When the driver went back around 8:30 p.m. to fill up their car, the price was $4.24 a gallon.
“I don't understand how they can do that,” the complainant said. “I went in to ask how they can go that high but didn't get anywhere.”
Retailers base their prices on a number of factors including cost of product, profit margins, cost of credit card fees, and competition, said Michael J. Fox, executive director of the Gasoline and Automotive Service Dealers of America. Prices can also change once a retailer gets a new delivery, he said.
As of Friday, wholesale gas prices reached their highest point this year but retail prices were still below their all-time high for 2022. “No one is talking about that – they just want to blame retailers or label us as gougers!” Fox said in an email Friday.
One person, who wrote to Tong's office, accused every gas station in the state of “price gouging, corporate greed” in a March 7 complaint.
The AG's office received
a flurry of grievances in early March when prices at the pump were nearing record highs with the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. At the time, Tong declared an “abnormal market disruption,” due to rapid increases in the price of wholesale gasoline, and urged consumers to alert him to “anyone charging excessive gas prices.”
In some cases, consumers complained about prices in their area being higher than surrounding towns. A driver who went to a station on West Street in Litchfield at 1 p.m. on April 1, the day the repeal went into effect, reported the price of regular gas as $4.44 a gallon. At stations in nearby Washington and Torrington, the price was $3.79 a gallon.
Fox said “zone pricing” is a common practice in the industry in which suppliers charge different prices for the same gasoline depending on where it's being sold. “As an association we proved by showing invoices for the same brand of gasoline on the exact same day, delivery to two different locations for as much as $.50 per gallon more,” he said.
About a month after
declaring a market disruption, Tong again asked customers to report suspected price gougers after state lawmakers passed the gas tax holiday with the expectation that stations would drop their prices by a quarter.
“It's important to remember that prices at the pump will continue to fluctuate along with changes in wholesale prices,” Tong said in a statement late last month. “Not every increase, or decrease, in gasoline prices is related to the $.25 tax or constitutes price gouging. Every complaint will be investigated and all facts will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”
Several residents who filed complaints with Tong's office said that they had confronted gas station owners and clerks about their prices after the start of the tax holiday.
“When [I] asked the clerk about the suspension of the gas tax he looked at me like I had 2 heads. Said he didn't know anything [about] it.” wrote one customer who said they filled up their tank for $4.32 a gallon in Stonington on April 6, after returning from Florida.
Others appeared to vent
about long-held frustrations with particular stations in their area.
“This station is consistently one of the highest price stations in the area by a large margin and are
clearly operating on greed despite the $.25 reduction in fuel tax in this state,” wrote one driver regarding a station on Iranistan Avenue in Bridgeport.
The complaint came
with a photo of the station advertising $4.59 a gallon for regular gas with a credit card nearly a week into the gas tax holiday.
The gas tax holiday will continue until July 1.