Refunds promised 
for gas gouging rare

By Jeremy Redmon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

After the Gulf Coast hurricanes wreaked havoc on fuel supplies last year, motorists and others flooded state watchdogs with complaints of gas price-gouging in Georgia.

So far, the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs has probed 197 of those complaints and determined that 78 gas stations and other businesses gouged customers. Those businesses agreed to pay Georgia tens of thousands of dollars in fines and offer refunds to victims for overcharges.

So how much have the victims been refunded?

Not much, according to a sampling.

The Consumer Affairs Office hasn’t kept a combined total for all the businesses. So The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested records from the Consumer Affairs Office of refunds for eight of the Atlanta area’s most egregious cases. Those records show those businesses paid less than $20 in refunds and gift cards. In all, six people got some form of refund.

For example, the gas station that got hit with the biggest fine in the Atlanta area did not pay any victims back a single cent. In a settlement with the state, the Executive Park Chevron at 2911 Buford Highway N.E. in Atlanta agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and post a sign offering refunds to customers who bought gas there between Sept. 13 and Sept. 30.

State officials said they received a complaint that the Chevron charged $4.69 for a gallon of regular gas on Sept. 15. The station shouldn’t have charged more than $4.39 per gallon, according to state’s Consumer Affairs Office.

Karim Roy, who owned the station at the time, said he charged $4.59 a gallon for only a day. He said he paid his fine and posted a sign offering refunds throughout December — as required by his settlement with the state — but no one requested them.

“No one came. We put [up] advertising. We [did] everything,” said Roy, who said he sold the Chevron after offering the refunds.

Gov. Sonny Perdue activated the state’s anti-gouging laws in September, the same month Hurricanes Gustav and Ike shut down oil refineries in Louisiana and Texas. State law prohibits stations from making greater profits once the governor designates an emergency.

Saying they found evidence of price gouging at gas stations, state officials worked out settlements with those businesses, requiring the businesses to post signs stating certain customers with receipts were eligible for refunds. The gas stations, which did not admit guilt as part of their settlements, were each given a deadline to report to the state how much in refunds they paid or denied customers.

Those deadlines have passed in settlements for seven of the eight businesses the AJC reviewed. State officials don’t plan to pursue those seven further and have already moved on to other cases. Consumer Affairs Administrator Joe Doyle, who was appointed by Perdue, referred questions to his spokesman about why Georgia has collected so little in refunds.

Spokesman Shawn Conroy said his office has four attorneys working on the cases and that officials have checked to make sure that some — but not all — of these business have posted signs offering refunds as required. The office has partly relied on the public to help police them, Conroy said.

“Even if it is $2, any money that goes back into a consumer’s pocket — especially during this economic time — is important,” said Conroy, whose office has 47 employees and an annual budget of $3.9 million.

Other states bordering Georgia have handled gas price-gouging differently in the wake of the hurricanes. North Carolina, for example, reached settlements with fewer businesses but was more aggressive with them. Unlike Georgia, North Carolina’s settlements specify a total in refunds each was required to pay and said they must post refunds to all credit cards used to buy gas from them during certain periods.

One of North Carolina’s settlements required a business that operates five gas stations in that state to pay a $10,000 fine plus a total of $2,320 in refunds to customers. That business was also required to report to the state how much in refunds it handed out and then pay the state the difference between that amount and $2,320 to help defray the cost of home-heating bills for low-income residents.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced in June that his state had won from 11 gas stations $56,000 in consumer refunds, fines and money to help heat homes for low-income residents.

“People let us know about suspected price gouging and we took action,” Cooper said in a prepared statement. “We’ve put money back in consumers’ pockets and sent a strong message that we won’t tolerate those who try to make an unfair profit off of a disaster.”

Conroy, Georgia’s consumer affairs spokesman, declined to comment on how other states are holding gas stations accountable except to say anti-gouging laws differ among states. Conroy, however, pointed to how the state fined a Citgo station at 2900 Evans Mill Road in Lithonia $1,000 for failing to post refund signs as required by its settlement with the state. The state had earlier fined the Citgo $2,000 for price-gouging and ordered it to pay customers refunds.

Dhanajay Gupta, who manages the Citgo, denied the station charged too much. Gupta said the business posted refund signs but customers either didn’t ask for their money back or didn’t have receipts proving they bought gas.

“I don’t agree we were overcharging with the gas,” Gupta said. “Whatever else everybody else was charging, we were charging the same price.”

At least one business in Georgia didn’t turn away customers seeking refunds without receipts, according to the state’s records. Kroger reached settlements with the state to pay a total of $4,000 in fines and offer refunds from its fuel centers at 3139 Highway 278 North in Covington, 2325 Bethelview Road in Cumming and 3651 Peachtree Parkway in Suwanee.

Kroger officials say they gave two customers who inquired about refunds but didn’t have receipts $5 Kroger gift cards at the Suwanee location. Two other customers who presented receipts each got $2 refunds at the same location. The other two Kroger locations did not pay any refunds, state records show.

“Kroger deeply apologized to our customers for this situation affecting three of our fuel centers in the Atlanta division,” Kroger spokesman Glynn Jenkins said. “We came to an agreement to settle this matter with Georgia’s Department of Consumer Affairs, and signage was posted at the affected locations to notify customers.”

Georgia also reached settlements requiring fines and restitution from the Grands Sunoco, 4689 Ridge Road in Douglasville; a Chevron station at 400 N. Cobb Parkway in Marietta; and Leon’s Food Mart, 5410 Matt Highway in Cumming. All three paid their fines but none paid any refunds, Conroy said. The owners of the Chevron and Leon’s Food Mart denied they overcharged customers and said they posted refund signs but no customers asked for any money back. An attorney representing Grands Sunoco wrote the state on May 7, saying no customers had asked for refunds.

The Panola Food Mart Shell at 2983 Panola Road in Lithonia paid the state a $2,600 fine and handed out $5.60 in refunds, Conroy said. A man who answered the phone at the station said the owner was out of the country and not available for comment. But an executive in the company that operates the Shell denied in a settlement with the state that the business gouged customers.

The Covington Highway Food Shop — doing business as an Exxon — at 5400 Covington Highway in Decatur has until Sept. 10 to report to the state about refunds required in its settlement with the state. One of its owners declined to comment for this article.

Georgia, meanwhile, is still investigating about 81 other businesses for gas price gouging, Conroy said.

“It’s just labor-intensive,” Conroy said. “We are working through them.”

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Check our sources

The Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs is keeping a list of its enforcement actions concerning gas price gouging at: consumer.georgia.gov .

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How we got the story

Through Georgia’s Open Records Act, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained records of the state’s settlements with businesses accused of gas price-gouging and compared them with settlements in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. The AJC also reviewed records of the refunds these businesses have paid consumers and interviewed a spokesman for the Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs and the owners or managers of most the businesses mentioned in this article.

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