The three-month period of grace for forecourts to comply with Fuel Finder is creating a ‘Wild West’ scenario in which unscrupulous petrol station owners are reporting cheaper prices to the government scheme than they offer to the public.
Since February, retailers have been legally required to share prices within 30 minutes of making a change through the Fuel Finder portal. Many operators have paid for an API link, an IT connection that means Fuel Finder can be automatically updated when any price changes are made. But when new data is inputted manually by operators there can be discrepancies.
The data is then aggregated by VE3 Global and shared to motorist apps so drivers can shop for the cheapest fuel.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) delayed enforcement of Fuel Finder until May 1, after the scheme got off to a bumpy start, with petrol station operators reporting difficulties signing up, and a delay in retailers being able to register.
However, one forecourt operator, Oliver Blake, is warning that lack of enforcement is causing compliant sites problems. He has found an instance of a site’s Fuel Finder data being different to the prices it charges for unleaded and diesel at the pump.
Blake, operations director at his family business, Oasis Services in Long Riston, the East Riding of Yorkshire, says the situation is “plainly unfair” for compliant operators, and motorists depending on apps to find the cheapest fuel.
And he is concerned that there will be a lack of resources given to enforcement even when the CMA starts to take action against non-compliance, and that mismatched prices could be an ongoing problem.
“The fact that there appears to be no meaningful enforcement until May 1 creates a bit of a Wild West situation, where retailers may feel they can publish whatever they like without any consequence,” he says.
“If the system is not being enforced then consumers and compliant businesses are effectively left without protection.”
He adds: “I just don’t think they will have the resources to stamp on operators not playing by the rules.”
The CMA says that any issues with the accuracy of fuel prices displayed on Fuel Finder should be reported to the aggregator of the data VE3 Global.
In a recent Linkedin post in April, CMA executive director Juliette Enser said: “We understand this is a complex system impacting thousands of petrol stations, with companies required to change their compliance functions and report price changes to a new platform.
“That’s why we have been clear that we will not take enforcement action until 1 May 2026. With this fast approaching, we have written to petrol stations reminding them of the rules and putting them on notice that we won’t hesitate to take more direct action, where we have grounds to do so.”
But Blake says that had the government ironed out problems with Fuel Finder before it went live forecourt operators would not be placed in this impossible situation where compliant operators will have lost sales to others providing inaccurate information. “If those prices are inaccurate, honest retailers can lose business unfairly. It is difficult to quantify the exact damage, but in a highly competitive market even a small loss of custom has a real impact,” he says.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), which is overseeing Fuel Finder, says that it encourages any suspected data errors to be reported using the official form at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-an-error-in-fuel-prices-or-forecourt-details
