Independent forecourt operator Ben Lawrence says registering his three filling stations with Fuel Finder has been “a nightmare”. First the registration website refused to work, then once it was up and running the system declared all three of his sites’ activation codes to be invalid.
“When I first tried to register I got a ‘404’ code saying the website couldn’t be found, and they said they were having teething problems. Then I managed to get on and applied for registration codes, but after they arrived in the post and I entered them, the system told me they are all invalid.
“I got in touch with the Fuel Finder helpline on Monday [January 19] and they asked for as much information as possible – screen shots showing the issue, full details of what was happening – but I’ve yet to hear back from them with a solution.
“The codes are only valid for 15 days after being generated, though, and they have to be sent out by post. Will I need to apply for new ones and, if I do, will they arrive in time for when I have to be registered on 2 February?”
Lawrence says that that each of his three forecourts – in Sheringham, and Harleston in Norfolk, and in Southampton, Hampshire – received its own invalid activation code, indicating each site has to be registered individually, despite the fact one company with multiple sites should only receive a single code.
He adds, though, that while his case may be an outlier, he has been reliably informed that while other companies have received a single code, letters have been sent to each of the hundreds of forecourts in larger firms’ portfolios reminding them to register.
This isn’t the first issue to have affected the mandatory scheme, which launched two weeks late due to additional ’reliability testing’ being required. A week after registration was finallly open just 10% of forecourts - dominated by sites run by Sainsbury’s and Rontec - had signed up to the scheme, which is being outsourced by the government to a company called VE3 Global, which had not previously worked in the sector.
“This isn’t something we really want to be doing, but they could make it easier for us. Each stage seems to have brought up a hurdle”, Lawrence says.
