(News) Gasoline labeled as Premium is not always High-Octane (moved from ATSNN)

Drivers pumping premium into their gas tanks are not always getting high-octane fuel and instead get swindled by service station owners and delivery drivers, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation has found. No one can say exactly how prevalent fraud at the pumps is because the state's octane testing program has been dysfunctional for years, regulators concede. Nevertheless, industry insiders and state petroleum inspectors say it is common.




I am willing to bet you may think this is just limited to the state of Wisconsin, but you would be wrong.

The State of Michigan also tests and it nailed 26 retailers for octane fraud in 2004 and levied fines of more than $34,000. Indiana launched an aggressive octane testing program in 1991, after legislators there suspected widespread fraud. The first year of testing showed corruption was even worse than lawmakers thought. Half of all the gasoline tested did not contain the reported levels of octane.

According to industry sources, corrupt station owners strike when they know the price of gas is going up the next day. Some watch the futures crude market on the Internet, others keep in close contact with distributors, still others watch for oil companies to post the following day's price hours before it takes effect.

The above shows that at least three states have or had this problem, which makes me wonder how many more states are not checking their octane levels at the pumps?


Related News Links:
www.gazetteextra.com

[edit on 4/12/2005 by shots]

Um.. this seems a little bit like a chicken little story

Phil Albert, director of the bureau of petroleum products and tanks, said the state spent nearly $300,000 in 1995 on 14 fuel testing units, but there were "major problems" keeping the equipment calibrated and maintained.

It has the potential to be a problem, but there is no proof to say it IS a problem.

Officials in the state Department of Commerce, which regulates petroleum, said they did not find any octane fraud in Wisconsin last year.

Um.. this seems a little bit like a chicken little story

Phil Albert, director of the bureau of petroleum products and tanks, said the state spent nearly $300,000 in 1995 on 14 fuel testing units, but there were "major problems" keeping the equipment calibrated and maintained.

That not the way I take it, they have admitted to having major problems. so no it is not a chicken little story as you think. I doubt any state agency is going to admit they have wrong doing even when they know it is going on.