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Jul 18, 2006 1:15 am US/Central
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Clerk Mistake Leads To $0.29 Gas In Bloomington
by Jason DeRusha
Bloomington, Minn. (WCCO) ―
We're all looking for a great deal on gasoline, but a Bloomington woman was the lucky beneficiary of a clerk's mistake Friday.
Jan Grobe drove up to a Citgo station and started loading up her Ford Escape.
"I just started filling it, then I looked at the gauges, and I looked at the price and thought 'Wow, something's wrong'," she said.
Instead of $2.99 a gallon, Grobe's pump read 29 cents a gallon. It's her cheapest fill-up ever. For 11 gallons, she paid $3.34.
"It was a good deal today," said Grobe. "I was at the right place at the right time."
The station's general manager told WCCO-TV the mistake happened just before noon. About five or six people got gasoline at that price before the clerk shut down the pumps, realizing she had made an error.
Every gallon of gas is priced with an extra nine-tenths of a cent added on. So when you see $2.99, you're really paying $2.999.
According to the gas station manager, the clerk forgot about the last nine-tenths and inputted "299," which translates to $0.299 -- essentially 30 cents.
When Grobe and the other customers went into the store, the clerk told them that since the gas station made the error, the customers would get the unbelievably low price.
Grobe wondered if that price had to be an historic low. We checked, and 29 cents a gallon was the national average in 1955 -- 51 years ago!
She says the gas will last her about a week. As she motors around town, it will be a nearly free ride.
Grobe added, "It was a good deal, I was happy with it."
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