I don't get the 9/10ths in fuel pricing.

Because people see 2.99 9/10 as a mental barrier, somehow different than 3.00 9/10

Well, along time when gas was 27.9 cents a gallon. ( lowest I personallty remember)

That .9 was a marketing ploy to make a station appear that their gas was 1 cent cheaper, now it is just a waste.

We went over this a couple of months ago......sorry I can't recall the exact reason, but it's a hold over from the'70's and has to do with the the taxes......

I really wish they would change it.

Quoted: I really wish they would change it.

Careful what you wish for, next thing you know it will be $3.99 13/10!!

I wish they would just go ahead and round up already.  I'm also sick of retailers with their 999.99 bullshit, too.

Quoted: I don't get the 9/10ths in fuel pricing.

Because the Stone-Cutters want it that way

They are not fooling anybody after all this time.  It's kind of like when our tyrants tax something or take a right away.  It's going to be that way forever.

It's got to be Bush's fault in SOME way...

Quoted: Quoted: I don't get the 9/10ths in fuel pricing. Because the Stone-Cutters want it that way

Oh yeah, fractions = satan

Quoted: We went over this a couple of months ago......sorry I can't recall the exact reason, but it's a hold over from the'70's and has to do with the the taxes......

I don't know the reason either, but this makes the most sense to me. Anything this goofy had to be a result of some govt. regulation, or a way to save on business taxes.

Along the same lines....

www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/23/99_pence_coin/

Brits demand 99p coin

By Lester Haines
Published Tuesday 23rd August 2005 13:55 GMT


We'd never really considered this, but a third of Brits want a 99p coin to tackle the menace of the £XX.99 pricing strategy, which a Virgin Money poll says wastes £11m a month in discarded 1p pieces.

Although around 50 per cent of thrifty citizens save their 1 and 2p coins - traditionally in a huge whiskey bottle having drunk all the whiskey they bought with the proceeds of their last huge whiskey bottle bank - plenty of us just chuck the small change. Virgin Money reckons the total lost comes to £133m a year.

The poll - of 1,250 people - also proved that 40 per cent of surveyees preferred to break into a quid coin or a note than count out change.

Of course, the real solution to the problem is to make the pricing of goods at £XX.99 (or £XXX,995 in the case of houses) illegal and punishable by death while raising the value of the 1p coin to £1 to encourage people not to throw them away.  

A few years  or so ago at my local gas station there was a new clerk.

So it was fun time.  I demand that I get my change back.

I put a gallon of gas in my container for the old lawnmower and went in and paid the dollar (really cheap oh that was ...so long ago). After giving the clerk the dollar bill I just stood there....waiting.

She said can I help you.  

Yes you can, give me my change., Your sign says .99 9/10th for a gallon of gas. I gave you a dollar. Now give me back my 1/10th of a cent back.

...boy did I have ger a going for about 10 minutes.

I think they stole that idea of a $.99 coin from Steve. Married W/ Children. Got shot down when they realized tax is on top of that..

Rob

It was a marketing ploy just like retailers selling stuff for "$9.99" or"$9.95". It looks cheaper than marking it "$10.00". And it works too. You never hear anybody say that gas selling for $3.099 is $3.10, they always say it is $3.09.

3.A 13.401 gal. purchase of gasoline priced at $1.399/10/gal. vs $1.40/gal.

                                                                                                dispenser rounding
                              13.401 gals. x $1.40/gal. = $18.76140           $18.76
                              13.401 gals. x $1.399/10/gal. = $18.747999       $18.75

Dispenser computers are not programmed to apply conventional rules for rounding (Hurlburt).   Any even half-cent amount not rounded to the nearest even cent introduces a one cent increase in price.   For example, a 5.000 gallon purchase of gasoline priced at $1.249/10 = $6.245000 and should be priced as $6.24, however, all motor fuel dispensers are programmed to calculate the purchase as $6.25 - a 15:10  bias for rounding up.  Daily U.S. gasoline consumption of 350,000,000 gals. provides many opportunities for dispenser rounding errors at unknown cost to motorists.  Dispenser computers could easily be programmed to eliminate rounding bias.



The ultimate absurdity in gasoline pricing was displayed in a photograph in the September 12, 2001 issue of the Arizona Republic on the skyrocketing prices at a local gas station in Topeka, KS following the terrorist attacks the previous day.  The price-gouging operator was careful to add 9/10 cent to the $6.00 per gallon cost of his Premium Ultimate gasoline rather than a more compassionate pricing of $5.999/10 per gallon.

    This industry-wide, deceptive and anachronistic pricing practice has been accepted without question by American motorists for the past 70 years!

Why are gas prices posted in nine-tenths of a cent? There are a couple of ideas about why gas prices include ( --1-- ) of a cent. Some say it's because in the days when you could actually buy things for a penny, people were glad to pay, say, 16.9 cents per gallon instead of 17 cents. If they bought 10 gallons, they'd save a whole ( --2-- ). Others point out that the gas prices we pay at the pump include taxes that state and local governments charge. Those ( --3-- ), which gas stations must add to the price of the gas they sell, usually include fractions. But neither of those really answers the question. Just because a part of a penny mattered 80 years ago ( --4-- ) mean we have to do things the same way today. And no matter what taxes they're charged, gas sellers are still free to set prices pretty much however they like, rounding up or ( --5-- ) to the next whole number. No matter how the tradition began, everyone agrees that nowadays the main reason for nine-tenths-cent pricing is the same reason hot dog rolls are priced at $1.99 instead of $2 or a new car is priced at $18,995 instead of $19,000. It just looks and sounds cheaper. When customers see a sign that reads $1.63 and nine-tenths instead of $1.64, they feel like they're getting a ( --6-- ). Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Survey of American gasoline prices, says that 9/10 isn't the only ( --7-- ) you'll find at the pump. "Gasoline is more about the 'odd number' under the next dollar than about the ( --8-- ) 9 in particular," she says. Lundberg says that while 9/10 (nine-tenths of a cent) is the most frequently found price, others are used, including 7/10, 5/10, 3/10 and 8/10. Because there's no way to pay a fraction of a penny -- and no way to get change from a penny -- not everybody thinks it's fair to include fractions in gas prices. (Fuel is the only thing that's priced this way.) People in some states ( --9 -- ) tried to get laws passed to do away with fraction-of-a-cent gas pricing. (Iowa outlawed the practice for four years in the 1980s.) But the movement hasn't had much success -- not yet, anyway. If you believe that the whole thing's a ( --10-- ), maybe you could write a letter to your state's governor, your city's mayor, or your congressperson. Just don't try to use one of those 36.9-cent stamps. Adapted from an article in The Washington Post (2002) by Dr. James Madachy