No, for reference, if you have a 25 gallon tank, you’ve paid $.25 more than you pictured paying (if in fact you did picture a dollar amount). But you didn’t pay any more or less than the displayed price. Since all gas stations do it (so that they can compete evenly with the gas station on the OTHER corner) there’s no better or worse deal than the cents represented in the tenths and hundreths of a dollar spaces. But again, to the consumer’s eye, the nine thenths was not a factor.

To say that there is extra revenue from the nine tenths is not accurate. Nor is it accurate to say that the extra nine tenths was tax free. In the same way that after pumping ten gallons of gas, the pump doesn’t read $xx.xx and 90/10ths. It simply rounds it up and continues to add it together right to the end.

So this whole thing (as deceptive as it seems) is nothing more than a marketing ploy that placates the public into feeling like they are paying one cent less per gallon and it has spiraled into a point of global acceptance.

In fact, dropping the extra fraction and rounding up to the nearest cent could eventually result in a one cent drop in the price of a gallon of gas as that one cent would cause customers to look for that gas station that was (now) one cent lower in price. And since (as of late) the price of a gallon of gas is hitting record lows, that one cent would be hard to even count.

There, I said it.

Imagine a retailer making an average 1000 sells a day, each garnering an extra penny. But what’s 10 bucks a day?

Imagine that retailer then remitting their quarterly taxes – based upon actual sales. The $10/day isn’t declared, which ONLY amounts to just over $900 a fiscal quarter. But what’s $3,600 a year in undeclared (and illegally gained) income?

Now imagine 1000 retailers using this illegal practice in the Boise Valley (a conservative estimate). But, what’s a 1/3 of a million dollars picked from the people’s pockets?

I’m not a skinflint and I always tip by waitron more than 15% – but paying anything extra for a product or service should be MY choice, right?

Because they’re intent on ripping you off!

Maybe you don’t mind being overcharged by 2x or even more than what you ought to pay, but I don’t have money to waste on ripoffs. I find their evasiveness unnecessary and insulting.

Must be the heat.

What REALLY DOES IRK ME is the DECEPTIVE way Albertsons stores prices some of their items. Their price tag will state some absurdly high “regular price”, then the real price, then some fantasy “savings”.

When you go to check out, the display on the cash register, whether it’s operated by a cashier or automated, will display the absurd “regular price”, and below that, the absurd fantasy “savings”.

But it will NOT display the ACTUAL PRICE you are being charged for the item. You have to do the math in your head, and it’s not easy to keep up with a cashier. Especially if you’re buying a lot of items. I seldom buy more than a few items, and have a good idea what my total will be, and there have been -many- times when the cash register displays a total that’s way, way different. That’s when I notice that it’s rung up a different price, or not computed the discount.

Albertsons has a policy of letting you have an item free if it rings up at a higher price than marked, but it’s a pain to verify it. But I’ve gotten a lot of free food there by being alert.

I just wonder how much they rip off from people who have too many items to estimate, or can’t keep up with the display, or are too timid to question a price.

I’d gladly give up all that free cheese for some simple HONESTY. How much does the damn thing cost? Not 20 of them, ONE of them. Not the “regular” price, not the “savings”, just tell me how much the damn thing COSTS.

There’s no doubt in my mind their pricing system is intentionally designed to overcharge customers.