Recent Gas Price Gouging
Thursday the news began to report of a possible shortage of gas in the East Tennessee area. Thursday night people from the area swarmed the pumps to top off their tanks, in effect backing up what the media mentioned. By Friday one of the largest distributors of gas in the area was reporting they were empty, with no shipment due until the 17th of September.
Friday afternoon began to see prices like the above picture, but mostly only from Pilot. BP and Exxon kept theirs around $4.50 a gallon, but they too began to run out of regular gas, leaving pilot one of the few chains with regular gas. And they exploited it. Gas rose from around $3.65/gal to over $5 a gal in some areas in a matter of hours. Pilot was at the heart of this. As of this morning, prices are still the same, and most stations are still out of regular.
From this day forward, I will never buy anything from a Pilot owned store again. If I am on empty, I will park in front of their store and walk to the next store just on principal. The claimed many times they had plenty of gas and not to worry. Of course they said not to worry, they were making a killing off people this weekend.
If you are in the knoxville area, please write or call your local representatives and let them know this can not be allowed.
