Gas rip-off on Boston Road

I admit the second part of my day hasn't been so good (sick cat) so I wasn't in the best mood, but what happened tonight really pissed me off.

I'm on my way home driving down Boston Road basically running on fumes. Usually I get my gas at the gas/convenience store on the corner of Oakland and Dickinson--very nice people-- but I know I won't get that far. I'm coming up to the Citgo station on the corner of Boston Rd. and Harvey St. and glance at the prices on the giant lit-up sign and it says, $3.61 for regular. Not Bad! I think, and pull in but when I get to the pump, the pump says $3.71 a gallon. I go into the store thinking I've got a good case for getting it at the lower price. With prices going up so fast these days, the store owners may have changed one sign but not the other.

I wait until the guy behind the counter finishes with a customer, and then say, "Excuse me, but the sign on the outside says $3.61 but the pump says $3.71."

"$3.71 is right," he says, "the 3.61 is with a fill-up."

"Where does it say that?"

"It's right there, next to the price."

By this time I'm getting really annoyed. I go outside to look at the sign, and sure enough, in the space where it usually says ".99" in small letters, it says, in even smaller letters, "with carwash"-- only, a bulb is burned out so that what it really says was, "with car!" I go and look on the other side of the sign, and yet another bulb is strategically burned out, also coincidentally just leaving the words, "with car." So even if I had seen it, I wouldn't have gotten it. I put 75 cents in the tank and drove elsewhere.

If this isn't deceptive advertising, I don't know what is. I'm going back tomorrow with my camera and I'll post it here. Meanwhile, don't get taken.