FINDLAY, Ohio -- Gasoline-price websites such as www.gasbuddy.com and www.gaspricewatch.com, which are designed to help motorists find cheap fuel, and other gasoline-oriented sites that claim to offer discounts on fuel or incentives to earn free gasoline, have proliferated with higher fuel prices.
While most of the sites are legitimate, that proliferation opens the door to the potential for fraud. While she hesitated to use the word scam, [image-nocss] Linda Casey, spokesperson for Marathon Petroleum Co. LLC and its Speedway and SuperAmerica brands, told CSP Daily News that a site called www.freegasvouchers.com is using the Speedway logo without permission to promote gasoline discount cards that she said motorists have complained don't work.
The presence of the Speedway logo, along with other oil company logos, implies endorsement of the program, she said. According to Casey, Freegasvouchers.com is saying sign up for this, answer a question or two, and in two weeks, we'll send you a free gas card'. But the magnetic strip on the back is not readable, she said.
We at Speedway have not endorsed the program, and we are not working with them on the program, said Casey. We've got some angry customers, particularly in the Lexington, Ky., area. We looked into it, and it says it's a Tennessee-based company, but the Tennessee authorities say they have never heard of them before. And we had somebody drill down, but they have a domain proxy, so you can't tell where it's coming from.
She added, We don't want to use the world scam' right now, but we are in the process of sending them a cease-and-desist letter. It looks like they just pulled our logo off the webit's not a regulation logo, and the research that we've done within [Marathon] so far has not identified anybody who has authorized this program.
With high gasoline prices and high profits drawing a significant amount of attention to the oil companies and gasoline retailers, brand image and customer service have become even more important than usual for the petroleum industry. We just want to get the information out to people. We hate to see people being cheated, and when they feel like we're the ones who are doing the cheating, it makes things difficult. The industry has enough public relations problems as it is, she said. We don't need this kind of help.
Speedway is a unit of Enon, Ohio-based Speedway SuperAmerica LLC, a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Co. LLC, Findlay, Ohio, a division of Marathon Oil Corp., Houston.
Freegasvouchers.com LLC did not respond to a CSP Daily News inquiry for comment.
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