Today’s Sunday Oregonian, addresses this complaint about misrepresentations regarding gas prices. The problem is the hidden credit card or ATM charge. What happens when a gas station posts its prices but fails to tell you–until after you make the purchase–that the price is higher if you pay with a credit card? Or when a gas station adds a courtesy charge or ATM charge without disclosing it at the pump?

Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act provides a means of addressing this death by a thousand paper cuts rip off. Individuals who succeed in proving an Unlawful Trade Practices Act claim can recover their or $200–whichever is higher–plus attorney fees.  There is even the possibility of seeking additional punitive damages if the practice is really bad. If the practice is wide-spread, consumers can actually pursue the matter as a class action to recover the monies illegally collected.

I’ve actually handled one of these cases before. It arose when Oregon ARCO stations charged an ATM fee. But they didn’t tell you until after you pumped the gas and then went inside to pay. The case, which was a class action, eventually settled.

They’re not big cases, but they’re important because they add up.  For consumers, gas price increases are a a huge economic issue. Another dollar or two as a surcharge is maybe only a little bit, or the equivalent of a paper cut. But consumers are being squeezed from all sides. That single little surcharge is just one more example of the fee-based ripoffs that make consumers poorer.  The charges add up in another way. When illegal charges are collected from many consumers, they add up as additional profits for the company that is violating the law. Not good.

Back to the article. It notes: “What’s unclear is whether gas stations are required to note on their marquee signs that there are two prices — one for cash, one for plastic. That once was a more common practice, but many gas station operators say they haven’t done so for years.”

I disagree. The Unlawful Trade Practices Act specifically prohibits misrepresentations about prices of goods. And a misrepresentation includes a failure to disclose information. So if a seller posts a gas price as $3.99 per gallon, and that price is a “cash only” price, it must say “cash only” or something like that, or it is risks violating the act.
David Sugerman