EU fuel price investigation

[Steve L]

No doubt most of you saw the news last night where the EU office of fair trading, are investigating price fixing going back ten years of the price of crude oil. They raided BP and Shell HQ in London and siezed records and PC files.
This has the same potential importance as the Bankers Libor rate fixing and the mis-selling of PPI that has already been uncovered in the UK.
However the UK Office of Fair Trading did look tentatively at this issue last year and excuse my scepticisum, "chickened out of rocking the boat". Now they have announced they will reopen their investigation "just to make it look like they are doing something".

Now we the taxpaying public have been very aware and quite capable of having a bar room rant about fuel prices, but here is your chance to make a difference again. Fair fuel UK have launched a petition to help the EU and UK OFT's to keep focus upon what realistically can be called ROGUE TRADING on a massive scale which has affected all of us for the last 10 YEARS!!!!!!!

So now is your chance. Log onto www.fairfuel.com and sign their petition.
At the moment there are 365'000 people doing just that.
By my reckoning, you are paying about 18p per litre or 81p a gallon or £11-45 per average tank full or £595.70 a year, TOO MUCH!!!

So for less than 60 seconds on your pc or even at your local library, you can potentially have £600 of holidays for free.

So now I've grabbed your attention go and dare to make your stand. All my family (64 people) have already done so.

To me caravanning is a classless hobby and wether you drive a Jag and tow a 22 year old caravan or you drive a company car towing a brand new caravan we all do one thing. Drive our car to to the site and that involves fuel.

 

[hortimech]

Well , I tried going to the link, but all I got was an offer to sell me the website

I think the proper link is: www.fairfueluk.com but the petition page seems to have crashed

 

[Gabsgrandad]

Folks seem to be talking as though this 'alleged' price fixing is something new! I've been buying fuel for 50+ years, and was it any different then? --- No. Prices were always comparable. There has been regular investigations by governments of both colours- and the results are always the same -- no crime, (or no proof of crime) therefore no change again. And can you imagine that the "corrupt" EU commission will be any different? (They can't even sort their own accounts out, never mind someone elses!)
So don't hold your breath if waiting for a result.
PS. have been a member of Fair Fuel Uk for many moons now, so I shan't be losing any sleep in waiting for a result. We shall get away with paying as usual. -- unfortunately.

 

[Parksy]

I contacted Fair Fuel UK to let them know that the petition can't be signed at present because it's crashed.
Howard Cox replied to thank everyone who supports Fair Fuel UK and to let us know that they are trying their best to repair the servers so that we can sign the petition.

PS. have been a member of Fair Fuel Uk for many moons now, so I shan't
be losing any sleep in waiting for a result. We shall get away with
paying as usual. -- unfortunately.

The Government cancelled the last two planned increases in fuel duty largely because of pressure and lobbying organised and orchestrated by Fair Fuel UK who are widely accredited with stopping £6.5 Billion of fuel duty being levied on businesses and the public in 2011,2012 and 2013

 

[otherclive]

If the EC Anti Fraud Office OLAF, get their act together and find evidence of price fixing the fines are substantial. Even submitting incorrect, or misleading information can lead to a fine of 1% of the prevoius years turnover....ouch. A single country on their own has no chance of investigating such major companies business practices, except that is for the USA. So fingers crossed that the EC can really get to the bottom of this issue and see what the situation actually is.

 

[Steve L]

Sorry folks for my typo for www,fairfueluk.com and thanks Parksy for putting them straight on the web site crash.
My sceptical mind tells me that George Osbourne might of had a hand in trying to blott out the moaning minions. Oh sorry the tax payers.
It probably will take month/years to get the inevitable truth or half truth or leak or wistle toot.
But if everyone just sits back in appathy and just pay's up without registering dislike or discontent, then nothing will change.
Fair fuel uk might be the "david" fighting "goliath" and it might be as hard as pushing oil uphill with a teaspoon but eventually you will make a difference.
I managed to get my local supermarket fuel station put on the oft watch list following several reports to trading standards regarding a 6p fuel discount offer being sold on that pretext but during the offer period they put the pump price up 3p while the daily barrel price of crude oil remained stable and following trading standards enquiries, it was established that the bulk price at the distribution depot had stayed stable.
Fair fuel has managed to successfully prevent several attempts by George O, to add further taxation to fuel and now it looks like another round of fat cat rip offs are about to be unearthed. Which quite honestly are no suprise to any of us with our feet on the ground.

 

[ProfJohnL]

.........Fair fuel has managed to successfully prevent several attempts by George O, to add further taxation to fuel and now it looks like another round of fat cat rip offs are about to be unearthed. Which quite honestly are no suprise to any of us with our feet on the ground.

Hello Steve,
Reading your posts on this thread, a reader may gain the impression that Fairfuel are the only organisation lobbying to delay or remove fuels duty rises.
There are several organisations involved and I am certain it has been the combined efforts of all these organisations that has persuaded the chancellor to rethink.
I support Fairfuel, and I think it is helpful for anyone who agrees with their policies to add their support to their campaign.

 

[JonnyG]

Folks seem to be talking as though this 'alleged' price fixing is something new! I've been buying fuel for 50+ years, and was it any different then? --- No. Prices were always comparable. There has been regular investigations by governments of both colours- and the results are always the same -- no crime, (or no proof of crime) therefore no change again. And can you imagine that the "corrupt" EU commission will be any different? (They can't even sort their own accounts out, never mind someone elses!)
So don't hold your breath if waiting for a result.
PS. have been a member of Fair Fuel Uk for many moons now, so I shan't be losing any sleep in waiting for a result. We shall get away with paying as usual. -- unfortunately.

"corrupt" strange then that it is the EU commision that is taking this action as the uk office of fair trading gave the oil companies a clean bill of health only a few months ago! well we should be pleased and no doubt the government is as for a decade they have been charging US more in fuel tax then they should as its all linked so they have been getting millions each year in extra tax and no doubt if the case is proven they will no doubt fine those involved billions! and us? we will get nothing.

 

[Gabsgrandad]

"Well" --isn't it corrupt if you haven't had the accounts signed off in 14 years?

 

[ProfJohnL]

...... we should be pleased and no doubt the government is as for a decade they have been charging US more in fuel tax then they should ......

Jonny, What do you mean by "more in fuel tax than they should" What criteria supports your statement? How much tax should they be charging? Is there an approved protocol that tells a government how much tax to charge?

The reality is that governments set their own tax raising criteria, and they are free to set what ever amount they like on fuel. There is no formula that calculates what rate of tax to charge. In practice they set a level that they think us gullible motorists will not complain about too much.

The rather lame attempt to ramp up duty on fuel under the guise of funding research into renewable energy, has I think been blown clear out of the water, and realising the public now see how unsustainable that rouse is, they are faltering because it is politically suicidal. But I'm sure they'll soon find some other way of offsetting the lack of increase in fuel duty.

 

[Surfer]

Excuse me for being cynical but it is a foregone conclusion that all that will happen is that the companies will get a massive fine. In order to recoup their losses, they will then increase the price of fuel and the motorist will still suffer. A better way may be to impose a price control preventing them from increasing the prcie for a period fo 1 year.
BTW if price fixing were proved, woudl we get back the VAT we paid? Somehow I doubt it. Osborne loves it when the price increases as more tax into the treasury so that MP can increase their already over inflated salaries!

 

[JonnyG]

Prof,surfer has answered that for me VAT. if fuel prices were higher than they should have been, then the VAT amount taken in and payed by us was more than it should have been. As surfer said,will the government by rushing out and somehow giving us the money back? No The governments win both ways having collected more tax revinue from us than they should and also in a situation to fine companies billions.. ps dont forget VAT is added after all other duties too.and also dont forget 80p of what you pay for a litre of fuel is
is taken in tax.. of course the government is milking this for all its worth as all goods were posibly dearer than they should have been because of higher than should have been fuel prices,yet all the time the government was getting more in tax VAT than it should have gotten too!,which it clearly fails to mention...and imagine many will believe that nobody knew what was going on!!!!! please....

 

[ProfJohnL]

Fair comment Jonny,
Though my comment was aimed at the fuel duty rather than the VAT element. but you are correct as teh VAt is the last calculation , any excess cost or Fuel duty will also be reflected in the amount of VAT taken.

 

[Steve L]

I am glad if there are more protest sites other than fairfueluk as there still seems to be only a minority of people who take time to lodge their protest's that they proudly growl about at the first opportunity.
I've fired another mail to my local trading standards office detailing that our local supermarket fuel station has in the space of 7 days prior to the bank holiday ( by coincidence of cause!!! ) raising the pump price by 3p per litre or £2-10 per average tank of fuel. Multiply that by 60 sales per hour and a 12 hour shift and you get £1500 per day average increase.

As the old saying goes, look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. But in the case of us motorist's, the reverse is the case, as the pounds roll out of our pockets.

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

I applaud your efforts Steve, but unfortunately you are fighting a loosing battle, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer! One of the best ideas I heard of was to boycot one particular brand of fuel for 24hrs, say Esso, there takings drop considerably over that period, and to re coup there losses they drop the price to encourage motorists to fill up at there stations,then the other retailers follow suit,can't see it happening some how.

 

[Laurencewinn]

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[Surfer]

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