By PEGGY FIKAC
Copyright 2008 San Antonio Express-News

AUSTIN — A Woodlands-based fuel company with dozens of gasoline stations in the Houston area shortchanged customers at nearly 1,000 of its gas pumps and could face fines topping $100,000, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

State investigators said more than 60 percent of the pumps at 47 Sunmart stations owned by Petroleum Wholesale were shortchanging customers. At 15 of those stations, every pump was “cheating drivers,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said.

“It’s not good,” said Florencio Blanco, 33, who was fueling his coupe Tuesday at a Sunmart station in the 9400 block of the North Freeway that had been cited by Staples’ office. “It’s a fight every day to get the money for gas.”

Petroleum Wholesale general counsel Stuart Lapp, reached at the company’s headquarters in The Woodlands, declined comment.

The majority of the stations cited by the Agriculture Department were in Harris County; one was in Bexar County.

The problem pumps were shut down until they can be recalibrated, department officials said.

Staples said the company could face fines of more than $100,000. He said he had referred the matter to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

“At a time when families are struggling to purchase fuel, I am sure all Texans would agree with me that despicable violations such as these are repulsive and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Staples said.

At a Sunmart station in the 6800 block of Cullen Tuesday afternoon, all the pumps had been rendered inoperable by the Agriculture Department.

Yellow tags stamped with the department logo and the words “Out of Order” hung from the nozzles, and plastic bands were tied around the levers.

“Isn’t that terrible,” said Jeanette Neveu after pulling up to one of the pumps. “You need the gas.”

Sunmart is not the only retailer whose pumps failed to give customers the precise amount of fuel for which they paid, but Staples said most station owners are not trying to shortchange patrons.

Staples said his investigators focused on Sunmart because of “some egregious violation patterns that pointed to the possibility of a single retail fuel company intentionally shortchanging Texas drivers.”

Statewide, more than 5 percent of the 109,369 pumps inspected last year in Texas — 5,778 of them — gave the wrong amount of gasoline or had other problems that put them out of commission until they were fixed.

Of those problem pumps, almost 28 percent, or 1,612, shorted customers on gasoline beyond a small variance allowed by the state, according to Texas Department of Agriculture inspection data analyzed by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News earlier this month. That percentage reflects only categories that measure gas output, not other problems that can affect pump accuracy.

Another 27 percent of the problem pumps statewide, or 1,575, gave more gasoline than purchased.

Even pumps that pass inspection are allowed to be off by as much as 6 cubic inches per 5 gallons — about six tablespoons — which legally can cost customers 2 cents a gallon, based on $4-a-gallon gasoline.

The standard is stricter for newly installed pumps. If 60 percent or more of a station’s pumps short the customer, even within the tolerance level, they are shut down.

Staples said at the Sunmart stations, the amount customers were shorted ranged from “slightly over to substantially over” the legal tolerance level. The pump that shortchanged customers the most — about a tenth of a gallon for every five gallons purchased — was in the Houston area, he said.

The operation was triggered when officials found Sunmart inspections were yielding a 34 percent rate of noncompliance with state standards, compared with the standard of 4 percent to 6 percent, Staples said.

The department, with a team of about 50 inspectors and coordinators, conducted an inspection blitz of every station from last Friday to Sunday night.

Some Houston-area drivers said they felt swindled, even if they were losing only a few cents per fill-up.

“A few pennies do count. Every little bit helps,” said Ebony Brown, fueling her small sport utility vehicle at a North Freeway station the department said had shorted customers.

Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5901166.html