Rip off Britain - Shell VPower RANT

[vanzep]

Today I got mad at being ripped off by my local Shell service station who charged me 6p per litre more than other shell stations a few miles away. I was charged £1.74.9 for a lire of VPower whilst only a couple of miles away other Shell Stations are charging £1.68.9
VPower is good but what a price and what a discrepancy in price.
I have contacted Shell and my local MP and am considering contacting the newspapers.
I am very unhappy about this.
RANT OVER

[simonc]

You're right to rant, @vanzep. The prices are bordering on criminal and there are a lot of chancers out there that seem to be able to get away with it.

[wurlycorner]

That's a huge price difference.
Might depend if they're an independent Shell station or one of the chain directly managed ones though? The independents will pay more for the fuel in the first place, I'd expect???

[Scott560]

The smaller the petrol station, the more it costs. When the fuel is delivered, it has to be paid for upfront. I believe the tanks are in the region of 40,000 litres, so the small petrol stations are having to finance the borrowing on quite a large outlay. They don't make much money on the fuel sales, which is why every petrol station is turning into a coffee shop annoyingly.

At least the move to electric has a benefit - no trips to the petrol station or waiting for people to get a drinks order!

[vanzep]

reply from shell uk said it could only control costs at stations it owned - which accounts for approx. 50% of them.
others are independent and can charge what they like for shell fuel.
the one i use which is closest to where i live is a big station but independent - my only option is to go to the nearest shell owned station which is only a few miles further away and it will save me nearly £4 per full tank.

[wurlycorner]

What I said then - so now it's a choice if you can/want to support an independent business (but pay more for that) or save money and feed the mega-corp.