Anatomy of a gas gouge

As Bush calls for probes into price fixing, here’s how one station fleeced customers for thousands of dollars.

NEW YORK – Twenty cents here, 30 cents there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money – $10,000 to be exact.

That’s roughly how much the New York Attorney General’s office figures one Getty service station in central New York gouged from motorists in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

President Bush called on Tuesday for states to keep a sharp eye out for gas gouging, which is defined by most state laws as the act of illegally jacking up prices in times of crisis. Amidst the fresh calls to crack down on the gouging that’s been spurred by the recent spike in gasoline prices, the New York attorney general’s office recalled just how they busted that upstate Getty station and 18 others like it last fall after Katrina.

It starts with a specific complaint – like where and when the motorist bought gas, how much they paid, and the price difference when they returned to the station, said Paul Larrabee, spokesman for New York’s attorney general Eliot Spitzer. That’s the kind of information regulators need to spring into action.

CNN/Money