FYI: At many of these stations (they make the same offer all over), you can just ignore the car wash price. First of all, the cost of the car wash is going to make the bill higher regardless. You won’t save enough on most vehicles to offset the price of the wash. At best, you have a gas guzzling van you filled up, and broke even… on getting your van wet. Those automated car wash garages aren’t actually washing shit. They’ll get some stuff off, but they won’t get most of it. And for most drivers, you’ll actually spend more money that way.
Another scam stations run is a “cash price.” It’s fine if you bring the cash, but if you don’t, they have an ATM that will charge you $5 to get the cash out, so you’re not actually saving money and for some drivers, you’re paying more and wasting your time. But if you know about how much gas you need and can do the math, or you just carry that much cash on the regular, it’s not so much of a scam.
But here’s the thing: on sites like GasBuddy, they’re going to list the cash price or the car wash price, not the actual price. They don’t have to stipulate that you have to spend money and/or time to get those prices. Your best bet is to simply not patronise stations that engage in deceptive pricing, even if it means spending a bit more per gallon down the street.
on sites like GasBuddy, they’re going to list the cash price or the car wash price, not the actual price.
Anyone can report the prices on GasBuddy. There is a shady Chevron like the one in the picture next to the station I use, I have rarely if ever seen the cash prices in GasBuddy.
FWIW, if you use a debit card and run it as debit (bypassing Visa or Mastarcard or whatever) then you will get the cash price and don’t need to bring physical money. I’m sure some of the scam is to advertise lower prices when most people will use credit, but they’re also charged a 3% fee from the credit card companies, and they’re not going to eat that cost, so it gets passed to the consumer.
![[OC] Meanwhile.. in San Jose, California](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3dc6bbaa-c278-4ba0-bacd-02efcb636e46.jpeg){kind=link}
FYI: At many of these stations (they make the same offer all over), you can just ignore the car wash price. First of all, the cost of the car wash is going to make the bill higher regardless. You won’t save enough on most vehicles to offset the price of the wash. At best, you have a gas guzzling van you filled up, and broke even… on getting your van wet. Those automated car wash garages aren’t actually washing shit. They’ll get some stuff off, but they won’t get most of it. And for most drivers, you’ll actually spend more money that way.
Another scam stations run is a “cash price.” It’s fine if you bring the cash, but if you don’t, they have an ATM that will charge you $5 to get the cash out, so you’re not actually saving money and for some drivers, you’re paying more and wasting your time. But if you know about how much gas you need and can do the math, or you just carry that much cash on the regular, it’s not so much of a scam.
But here’s the thing: on sites like GasBuddy, they’re going to list the cash price or the car wash price, not the actual price. They don’t have to stipulate that you have to spend money and/or time to get those prices. Your best bet is to simply not patronise stations that engage in deceptive pricing, even if it means spending a bit more per gallon down the street.
Anyone can report the prices on GasBuddy. There is a shady Chevron like the one in the picture next to the station I use, I have rarely if ever seen the cash prices in GasBuddy.
FWIW, if you use a debit card and run it as debit (bypassing Visa or Mastarcard or whatever) then you will get the cash price and don’t need to bring physical money. I’m sure some of the scam is to advertise lower prices when most people will use credit, but they’re also charged a 3% fee from the credit card companies, and they’re not going to eat that cost, so it gets passed to the consumer.