 "Photo: Bryant Haertlein")
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and the Texas Department of Agriculture announced Thursday a civil lawsuit filed against Petroleum Wholesale for failing to provide customers with gas that they purchased.
"The reality is that drivers in Texas already pay a stiff price for gasoline," Abbott said. "To make matters worse, some drivers have been overcharged at the pump."
Abbott and Todd Staples, Texas commissioner of agriculture, announced the suit following an investigation in which the department discovered that 990 of 1,704 pumps were rigged at 47 stations owned by Petroleum Wholesale, which operates under the name Sunmart. The three-day probe, dubbed "Operation Spotlight" ended July 20 after 50 Texas Department of Agriculture employees pumped gas from each pump at every station.
"I can assure you we are going to continue to shine a light on all violators who are seeking to shortchange Texans," Staples said.
Austin is home to one Sunmart station at 6615 Berkman Dr. At that location, eight pumps failed the inspection, one pump passed, and three were inoperable, according to the agriculture department's findings. Non-compliant pumps were tagged "out of order" and could not be reinstated until a licensed technician reinspected the devices. The attorney general's office said Sunmart was cooperating with the ongoing investigation.
Petroleum Wholesale, headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, services more than 350 locations throughout 10 states. The commissioner has alerted the other states' officials of the investigation.
In the lawsuit, the attorney general accuses the company of intentionally maintaining improperly calibrated fuel pumps to financially favor the company. The lawsuit claims the company violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which protects consumers against false, misleading and deceptive business practices.
"We are seeking both temporary and permanent injunctions, as well as very stiff civil penalties," Abbott said. "I would be surprised if the number of violations is less than 1,000."
The attorney general is seeking up to $20,000 in fines per violation. The number of violations will be compounded according to each customer purchase and each day Sunmart advertised the prices it was charging.
"Today's legal action is a potential financial death penalty for Sunmart," Abbott said.
The agriculture department received about 1,000 complaints concerning Sunmart from May 2006 to May 2007. That number doubled from May 2007 to 2008, and in July alone, the department received 571 customer complaints against Sunmart.
"We have a compliance rate of about 95 percent around the state, meaning about 5 percent of the pumps we test have some sort of violation," said Bryan Black, spokesman for the department. "Clearly, that was not what we found at Sunmart. They have a much higher trend."
Staples commended Abbott for his swift actions to instill confidence in Texas drivers.
"We have multiple safeguards in place to protect against what I consider to be [predatory] practices," Staples said. "These actions send a message that, in Texas, cheaters never win."
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