Fuel pricing..any other examples of imaginary pricing?

[IDMark2]

In my waking moments I am often ticking off a mental todo list for the day to come. Today's had 'Fill the car up.' on it so that triggered 'Best place to buy fuel'..then I got to thinking about those pricing signs on the stations 'Unleaded £1.23.9 Diesel £125.9 ' for an example.

Now, not even having the mildest obsessive nature , this thought was off on it's own making all sorts of scenarios up in my head where I was stood at a counter, having just purchased exactly three litres of diesel and was demanding change from my £3.78 payment. Then I woke up and got up properly and Googled UK pricing and found that it's not illegal to offer a price that doesn't come to a whole unit for something because if you use a decimal point you can round it up or down to the nearest whole unit, ie a penny.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/102/article/12/made

So, what other examples are there for goods that can be bought in a decimal point price per unit except you can't pay the actual price advertised?

I propose that we start a campaign for realistic attainable pricing. We shall call this campaign CRAP.

 

[Drago]

Dunno. I buy my diesel substitute for 62p/L.

 

[Davidc]

I don't understand your problem. Rounding of fractional prices (and most other measures) to a usable whole unit is common and has been for as long as I've been around. I go back far enough that I can remember at school in the 1950s learning how to do it with vulgar fractions, £ s d, rods, poles perches cwt lbs oz and of course time.

We all do it when we fill in a tax form, using rounding down to the nearest whole number, anyone who buys or sells shares will do it.

Anyone around in 1971 will remember needing to round old money prices to new money ones, and the inability of some shopkeepers to round down...

As and when sense prevails and we stop making payments to single pence precision we'll all need to get used to rounding our total bill to the nearest 10p at the till.

It's not imaginary pricing, it's just pricing to a greater precision than the precision of our currency. it's certainly not imaginary when the 0.1p is multiplied by the number of litres sold at a large filling station. Be sure that if the pricing to £ 1/1000 was stopped the prices would go upwards, never downwards, to the nearest £ 1/100 !!

 

[glasgowcyclist]

In my waking moments I am often ticking off a mental todo list for the day to come. Today's had 'Fill the car up.' on it so that triggered 'Best place to buy fuel'..then I got to thinking about those pricing signs on the stations 'Unleaded £1.23.9 Diesel £125.9 ' for an example.

Now, not even having the mildest obsessive nature , this thought was off on it's own making all sorts of scenarios up in my head where I was stood at a counter, having just purchased exactly three litres of diesel and was demanding change from my £3.78 payment. Then I woke up and got up properly and Googled UK pricing and found that it's not illegal to offer a price that doesn't come to a whole unit for something because if you use a decimal point you can round it up or down to the nearest whole unit, ie a penny.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/102/article/12/made

So, what other examples are there for goods that can be bought in a decimal point price per unit except you can't pay the actual price advertised?

I propose that we start a campaign for realistic attainable pricing. We shall call this campaign CRAP.

But the unit price for fuel is >£1 so the quoted legislation doesn't apply. Or am I not reading it correctly?

GC

 

[Archie_tect]

I like precision... balancing the business accounts exactly is not only satisfying it's so much easier than waffling about.

Similarly dimensions don't work if you round up or down on drawings... by the time you get to the end of a building you could be miles out- well 100 or 200mm out- which is critical! If things don't fit then it throws everything else out.

 

[Andrew_P]

This is the main thing, does not compute!

 

[Archie_tect]

Andrew, when it clicks onto 1.01 litres the price will be £1.2539 so that's why it's still showing £1.25... the few drops of fuel extra over the litre will be in the tank.

[edit: snap!]

 

[Andrew_P]

Wasn't my pic, caught my eye the other day.

 

[chewa]

I'm more annoyed that I can never get the b***dy thing to stop at exactly £xx.00. It always tips over to another one, even if I have been creeping it in on the countdown .96...97...98...99......01!!!!!!

 

[Smokin Joe]

I'm more annoyed that I can never get the b***dy thing to stop at exactly £xx.00. It always tips over to another one, even if I have been creeping it in on the countdown .96...97...98...99......01!!!!!!

That irritates the hell out of me, too. I generally faff around from pocket to pocket "Looking" for the penny and nine out of ten times they just say to forget it. Anyone who insists on the penny gets a fiver to change. There ought to be a button you can push on pumps that stops them at the next pound.

 

[Shadow]

Indeed. I do not understand why pumps are not pre-paid, allowing you to put in the exact amount of ££'s worth of fuel, which have been around in other countries for years.
This would also stop those thieves who drive off without paying!

 

[IDMark2]

I don't understand your problem

Not many do.
I didn't actually have a problem as such, it was much more a tongue in cheek post... Apparently fuel stations make a lot of money for not much extra by people trying to attain a round number on their fill and the irony of that when they don't price in a round figure in the first place is more what I was aiming at.

 

[green1]

Indeed. I do not understand why pumps are not pre-paid, allowing you to put in the exact amount of ££'s worth of fuel, which have been around in other countries for years.
This would also stop those thieves who drive off without paying!

It's a pain in the arse though when you go to fill a hire car up in the states and you don't know how big the tank is. And then when you do find out it's X gallons and you forget they don't use proper gallons and pay too much and have to sheepishly go in and get a refund..

 

[stephec]

That irritates the hell out of me, too. I generally faff around from pocket to pocket "Looking" for the penny and nine out of ten times they just say to forget it. Anyone who insists on the penny gets a fiver to change. There ought to be a button you can push on pumps that stops them at the next pound.

I'm sure the ones in our local Tesco do that.

There's an option to enter the number of litres or pounds you want.

 

[Brains]

A few years back I caught a major retailer petrol station on on the A303 at this game,
Very late at night I filled up my 70 litre tank in my Landrover with 75 liters of fuel.(and I was only just in the red). I objected, and was immediatly sent on my way - no charge!.

In other words they were doing this on such a regular basis, that anyone who objected got free fuel, and they just moved the cost onto all the following motorists, hoping that at that time in the morning people would be too tired to notice