Agency probes price gouging in Danville

By Sarah Arkin

Published: October 1, 2008

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is still looking into reports of price gouging weeks after Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast, but the number of reports is vastly smaller than originally thought.

Initially, the office received between 2,300 and 2,500 reports, spokeswoman Marion Horsley said Wednesday.

When the agency started looking into the reports, she said, officials found that many of the calls were either repeats — the same person calling more than once or more than one person reporting the same gas station — or that people hadn’t left specific enough information including the exact location of the gas station, the name of the gas station or the specific price increase.

Those repeats and incomplete reports “reduced the number (of complaints) significantly,” Horsley said.

The consumer services agency is now looking at about 1,115 reports all together, 22 of them coming from Danville. That number of complaints is relatively consistent with the number from other locations.

There were 45 price-gouging incidents reported in the Lynchburg/Madison Heights area, 15 in Blacksburg/Christiansburg and 10 in Martinsville.

“We are continuing to investigate and pull information together,” Horsley said.

David Clementson, deputy communications director for the Office of the Attorney General, said the office is still in the process of sorting through and investigating complaints.

Laws against gas price gouging were enacted on July 1, 2004, and are activated if the president or the governor declares a state of emergency. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine activated the law last month as hurricanes Gustav and Hanna flirted with Virginia and expanded the law in the wake of Hurricane Ike, which hit the Gulf Coast on Sept. 13.

After a multitude of reports after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the attorney general found compelling evidence and prosecuted just three gas stations, who had “unconscionably raised their gas prices,” Clementson said. One of those stations increased prices about 100 percent, he said.

Horsley said consumer services is still getting some non-specific calls. General high gas prices and an uncertain economy, rather than specific stations, may be prompting those calls, she said.

“I think people are just frustrated,” Horsley said.

Contact Sarah Arkin at or (434) 791-7983.