Last week, we told you about a new service that claims to allow users to lock-in current gas prices, continuing to pay today's prices even if gas prices rise. The service, known as MyGallons.com, continues to win publicity. Over the weekend, the service was profiled in Reuters wire reports and on the CBS News Early Show. The publicity is winning the service business, with CBS reporting that 6,000 new users signed up in six days last week.
Now, the Better Business Bureau is warning that something is amiss with the company's claims.
Consumerist reports, "The BBB says it's concerned" about MyGallons' "ability to live up to the advertising claims on its website." A BBB spokesperson told Consumerist that "MyGallons claimed (in their press release) to have partnered with US Bank. However, when the BBB called US Bank to confirm this, they found out that it wasn't true. US Bank had discussed the opportunity with MyGallons, but had declined." Consumerist notes that this means MyGallons has "no contractual agreements in place to process transactions," yet, "is still signing up new customers."
Alison Preszler, a spokeswoman for the bureau, tells the Los Angeles Times, "We're not calling this a scam. ... We just have serious concerns."
In a press release, the company responds, "Having tested the program since April of this year, MyGallons expects a seamless transition to a competing national payment network and any report to the contrary is false. We will be announcing our new national payment network soon."
There may be other reasons to be skeptical. Readers of this site have pointed out other potential problems in this thread, including the interesting notion that MyGallons may have claimed to have members before it even had a registered web domain.
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