The Director of Consumer Affairs has issued a warning to motorists about the need to be vigilant in case they are charged more for their petrol than is displayed outside petrol stations.
It follows a survey undertaken this week by her inspectors into the accuracy of petrol price displays.
The survey found that a few of the smaller petrol stations in the southeast, which do not have electronic display signs outside their garages, were showing the price of petrol at 99.9 cent, while the actual price at the pump was 103.9 cent.
The petrol stations claimed that this had arisen because the manual display signs had space for only three digits, and since the intervention by the inspectors they had rectified this with handwritten figures.
The Director of the Consumer Affairs, Carmel Foley says she is worried that this problem may spread with the expected increase in petrol prices. She called on the oil companies to issue petrol stations which use manual display signs with new electronic ones, and said that her office would continue to monitor the situation in the meantime.
