Pre-Paying For Your Gas -- A Moneysaver?

(CBS)  From coast to coast, and every rest-stop in between, there's no escaping the numbers.

Gas prices are through the roof, seemingly ever headed-higher.

"Painful. Very painful," is how one motorist described the situation to CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella. "It just gets higher and higher and higher," says another. "I'm afraid it's going to be like six or seven dollars," says yet another.

But what if you could avoid higher prices by locking in your price NOW?

"I would, sure, if it all made sense and was on the up-and-up," that first motorist told Cobiella.

Steven Verona says he's found a way. He founded and heads MyGallons.com.

People join and pay an annual membership fee like they do for any other price club, and they can pre-purchase their gasoline at current prices, Cobiella explains. And, if and when gas prices rise, they use their MyGallons card to fill their car, thereby paying the old price, and not the new, higher one.

For $29.95 a year, you get a MyGallons gas card, which is accepted at any station that takes plastic, Cobiella continues. You buy your gallons online at a price determined by the average cost of regular unleaded in your home zip code. There's no limit on how much you buy, or how long you wait before you cash it in at the pump.

"Some of the members of the pilot program were saving about $1.20 a gallon," Verona says. "Back in April, gas was $3.10 or $3.20 a gallon."

My Gallons pays for the shortfall by making money with your money.

"We place over 80 percent in a protected escrow account," Verona says. "That money is then invested in money markets and U.S.-backed treasuries, so that we earn interest in that."

The rest is used to do what Southwest Airlines does - to try to secure lower prices.

"You're betting on where the price of gas is going," points out financial planner Todd Battaglia, who says that's FAR from a sure bet: While the average price of gas has gone up about three dollars over the past ten years, there've been a lot of rises and dips in-between.

Even the experts who deal in this stuff differ on where they think the prices of gas and oil are headed, Cobiella notes.

Battaglia advises starting slowly, with a few gallons at a time, and making sure you pay off your credit card every month, or the interest could outweigh the savings at the pump. And remember, you're entrusting your money to a new company.

"You have to wait for the price of gasoline to go up," Battaglia cautions, "so, if you wait six months to a year and this company is suddenly out of business, you have assets sitting out there somewhere that you may never be able to get back."

That's a risk a lot of people seem willing to take: MyGallons says that, in just six days, 6,000 people have signed up.

"They were looking for someone to solve the problem, and that's what we've done," asserts Verona.

And Cobiella stresses that you should make sure you know what you're getting into: There are overdraft fees just like with a bank card, so you could end up spending MORE instead of less.
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[oneworldusa]

Prepaying for gas? Only if it''s in my posession. Why pay for something you don''t have?? I don''t trust this scheme.

[oneworldusa]

Posted by JTait2 at 08:02 PM : Jul 05, 2008

-And...how much is Hil-Rod paying you to spend your time posting this rhetoric?

Furthermore, you only attack Obama''s integrity, not McCain''s. How do you know Hil-Rod''s supporters haven''t gone to McCain, or independent?

If you support communism, vote for Hil-Rod!! Go ahead, people, its your vote.

[lostusadream]

If all that is being said (ie Gull Island) Is true and provable, Couldn''t the oil companies and The government be Sued, To open it Up? Does anyone Know if it is truely there? How do we guarantee it goes to US residents and not Japan Or the Next Highest bidder as Alaskan Crude is now? One Writer asks does Obama have a plan. I don''t konow I haven''t heard of one. Does McCain, other than no fed tax on Oil? Incidently folks I read on-line today that Congress will not address the oil issue in this session before the month long August Reccess. I recommend that If they Want time off, We give it to tthem by not re-electing one single congressmemn who runs in November to come back. Maybe all new is what we need to gain control of OUR country again. AS far as president, its a matter of which of the 2 you want,
I am not deciding until I see who they pick for VP.

[popstom1]

Big Business Big government Big F-Ked for the little guy

[bladan58z]

The South American rain forests are important. Those Governments need revenue from oil leases to reseed the regions devastated by the logging industry. Saudi oil will reach $200 a barrel soon. Why not convert to Central and South America? American Oil Companies will get reasonable deals on the site and transport to the U.S. That is maximum profit on an enterprise.

[naucoming4u]

It''s not that this concept wouldn''t work...

...but how many people (or how many of you) have "pre-paid" for some service or product... from some company... only to have that company go out of business...

...thus, leaving you with money spent for nothing in return!

See how this piddly-diddly dot-com company could do the same thing! Like I said, great concept, but I wouldn''t trust this company as far as I could throw it!

[caldwellptr]

I support drilling for oil in the U.S. and its coastal waters.

I also support each state determining whether that drilling will take place within its own boundaries.

That said, we should thank Texans for all of the oil it has supplied the U.S.

[forthepeopl1]

PUBLIC NEEDS TO DEMAND OPENING OF THE GULL ISLAND OIL FIELD

I have long maintained that the US government is purposely keeping US oil discoveries off the market in order to allow insider oil companies to drive up prices and save US supplies for the next war. Evidence continues to confirm that charge. A massive oil/natural gas field exists under Gull Island, located in the waters of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, according to Lindsay Williams. Williams was an Alaska oil field Chaplain who was so successful at boosting moral during the building of the Alaskan pipeline that he was given special access to many high level meetings at the Atlantic Richfield company. day before the meeting.

A few days later, the chief operating officer of Atlantic Richfield for Alaska, Ken Fromm, who had invited Williams to the meeting, called him and told him he must never mention this new discovery--that the US government had classified it and was ordering it capped. It is still being held off the market and is not part of the environmental lock-down of oil in the Arctic National Wilderness. Williams was given a British Petroleum memoranda [probably by Fromm] which related the statements of upper echelon oil officials from Arco which said that Gull Island would be kept under wraps, limiting domestic supplies so Americans would someday see prices hit up to $10 a gallon at the pump.

[bradster999]

The Gas Report

Consumers are feeling like they''re over a barrel these days as gas prices gush skyward. When asked, one man said he felt like he was getting hosed at the pumps by the oil companies. He blamed slick oil speculators which he called slippery operators. When pressured further about high gas prices he nearly exploded and it was clear he was feeling very compressed about the situation. When asked to offer up a solution to this gastly problem he said he thought they should grease the wheels of justice and stem the black tide of oil speculation. When asked what he meant by this he shook his nozzel at the reported and yelled gas prices are making us all FUMEING MAD and were not going to take it any more... filler up please

[walt1944-2009]

This reminds me of the scam that natural gas and electric companies use, that is, having you sign a one year "contract" in which you pay an "average" price for energy all year long, regardless if the price goes up or down.

The thing about those "contracts" is that the price of energy ALWAYS GOES UP, NEVER DOWN! And, in the fine print, you discover that at the end of the term, if the price is higher at the time that the contract ends (which you know it will be!) then what you were paying all year, YOU HAVE TO PAY THE DIFFERENCE FOR ALL THOSE MONTHS THE "AVERAGE" CONTRACT PRICE WAS LOWER!!!! AND IT''S DUE IMMEDIATELY!!!

You have to remember that the energy companies are like any other business; that is, out to seperate you from your money and they will do it by any means they can, legal or not!!!! You don''t pay what THEY WANT, they turn your utilities off!

Economics, the neocon Fascist Nazi Republican way!!!

SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil, DEFINITELY MORE OF THE SAME, McCain!!!!