So gas is expensive, right? wouldn't it be cheaper to buy it at a lower price than it is now? Yea! Let's do that! Psfk.com suggests “The only potential downside to this program is if gas prices go down, which is of course, very unlikely.”
That's the basic idea behind MyGallons.com except that as with all miracles of the pocketbook, there's a catch. Several, actually. One thing I didn't expect was that there are actually a large number of places that accept the weird "voyager" debit card that powers mygallons.com, so acceptance is not the issue. What could it be?
Fees. Lots and lots of fees. And also, you're not a commodities trader. I promise to follow up with an investigation of what scenarios would make this work, but I am skeptical that many exist, and even more skeptical that a consumer could detect such scenarios.
So, the Fees and the Problems:
- The first of many fees is the membership fee: *Cost of annual membership is $29.95 when enrolling in the auto-refill program. Cost of annual membership is $39.95 for the manual refill program.
- If you go over your balance on the card, it’s an “overdraft” fee of $15. Plus, you have to pay the going rate for the gallons you “overdraw” which means you’re not saving any money
- They charge you to send them money: $1.95 fee for processing the reload of your MyGallons Card when using a credit card to pre-purchase the fuel.
- You probably didn’t have the foresight to enroll 6 months ago, so in order to save more than the fees gas has to skyrocket after you purchase fuel. How are your commodities trading skillz?
- The method for calculating the price gallon at time of purchase (since you load up your card with gallons but they may make adjustments based on the average prices in your 'hood) is a BLACK BOX. Danger.
Watch out, car-driving America.
Link: Mygallons.com FAQS.