Okay, so I play this game….sort of.

I like to track the cost of gas at gas stations I pass by everyday. I think it gives me a true idea of how bad it is.

There are two stations by my house on the corners of Campbell and Prince: One is a Chevron, the other is a Catalina Market.

They are usually evenly matched pricewise. One day, Chevron is 2 cents lower and another day, the market is.

Well, last week, in the morning, Chevron was at $3.95. Catalina at about $3.87. By that afternoon, chevron had risen to $3.99! The other stayed the same. That was a 12 cent difference!

But then out of the blue, Chevron dropped back to the same $3.87.

Was that price gouging?

Also a question: How can gas sell for $3.79 on the far Northeast side and $3.87 by my house?

Is that price gouging?  

This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2008.

It's all about the food.

9 replies on “Gas Wars”

  1. OMG!!! Oh the humanity!! An 8 cent differential in price is per se price gouging!! I mean milk costs the same in every store doesn’t it? How dare these merchants change their prices like that. Next thing you know they’ll force us to actually buy gas at the high priced station instead of going across the street.

  3. no, retrov
    you missed the point.Other than the fact that it was a 12 cent difference, there were clearly some shenanigins going on at the Chevron station.
    I’m all for merchants making money, but this was an attempt at highway robbery.

  4. I was going by the “3.79 on the far Northeast side and $3.87 by my house” comparison. Sorry, I don’t see how you can equate a merchant raising a price on a product with robbery. One is always free to not patronize an establishment with high prices. Robbery, be it on a highway or elsewhere, implies the forceful, involuntary relinquishment of one’s property to another. What you’ve described is a gas station (Chevron) competing with another station (Catalina) that’s across the street.

  5. Raising prices to $3.99 when across the street it is $3.87 is “robbery” or at least just plain greed.

  6. Hey Rita: This is really gonna blow your mind! I stopped into the Valero Catalina Mart there on the southwest corner of Prince and Campbell yesterday and the clerk told me both stations are owned by the same company: They’re both Catalina Marts! Evidently, tho, they get their gasoline from different suppliers. If that’s the reason for the price difference, I don’t see how that’s robbery at all–or even greedy. Greedy would be charging more at the cheaper station to make price equal to the place across the street so consumers wouldn’t perceive a difference.

  7. Very interesting as Arte Johnson used to say. I’m curious to see how many station in town are owned by the same company…..or same companies.

  9. Someone told me the owner of those stations refuses to carry the Weekly – could be another reason to bitch and moan; oh, unless you’re the guy that uses the paper for your bird cage.

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