Four days after its official launch, independent fuel retailer Johnny Srikrishna is experiencing such fundamental issues with the government’s Fuel Finder service that he has declared the system “shouldn’t have left the testing environment”.
Srikrishna details he has experienced difficulty registering sites, reporting price changes, and authorising staff to update the system.
“It’s extremely buggy”, Srikrishna says. “It’s not even polished enough to be in Beta testing. It shouldn’t have left the testing environment – in fact, we are the testing environment, because it simply doesn’t work.”
He explains that while he has been able to add five of his six sites to Fuel Finder, “the sixth it just won’t let me register”, with the only advice from Fuel Finder’s helpdesk so far being to log out of the system then log back in again. “And that hasn’t fixed it”, he adds.
“There is also the facility to able to assign ‘delegated authority’ to my site managers”, he says. “This would make them able to update the system with price changes, and it would be a good facility – if it worked. But it doesn’t work at all, so I’m the only one who can give updates for all my sites.”
Finally, while Fuel Finder should allow retailers to report price changes manually online, via an automated IT plugin for EPOS systems, and by telephone, Srikrishna says he has been unable to change prices over the phone. “This would also be a good facility, but it doesn’t work either.
“I currently have three open tickets with the Fuel Finder helpline: one for the delegated authority issue, one for telephone reporting, and one for the site I can’t add.”
Since 2 February 2026, the Competition and Markets Authority has had the power to fine retailers up to 30% of their annual turnover if they breach the law that backs Fuel Finder up.
And while the watchdog has said it will focus on compliance rather than enforcement for the first three months of the system being operational, Srikrishna considers its attention should be elsewhere.
“Rather than focusing on compliance, the CMA needs to focus on implementation. The system hasn’t been fully built, and I don’t understand how exorbitant fines exist given the website simply doesn’t work. I’m currently in breach of the law because the system won’t allow me to comply with the law.”
VE3 Global, the firm that won the government’s tender to build the Fuel Finder system, has been approached for comment.
