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LCQ14: Incidents of erroneous charging at fuel and liquefied petroleum gas filling stations
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     Following is a question by Hon Andrew Cheng and a written reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Edward Yau, in the Legislative Council today (April 14):

Question:

     Regarding incidents of erroneous charging at fuel and liquefied petroleum gas ("LPG") filling stations, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) of the number of complaints about erroneous charging at fuel and LPG filling stations received by the authorities in each of the past three years, broken down by name of suppliers;

(b) whether it knows the time generally taken by the suppliers concerned to handle and resolve the problems, as well as to refund the overcharged amounts after cases of erroneous charging at fuel and LPG filling stations were uncovered; and

(c) given that it has been reported that the Sinopec (Hong Kong) Petrol Filling Station Company Limited has announced earlier that owing to erroneous LPG pricing at two of its LPG filling stations in Ma On Shan and Yuen Long between February 1 to 28, it had overcharged by a total of over $20,000, whether there is a mechanism at present for suppliers to report to the Government and the public on their own initiative incidents of erroneous charging at their fuel and LPG filling stations; if so, of the details of the operation of the mechanism; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

President,

(a) In the past three years, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) and Consumer Council (CC) have not received any complaint about erroneous charging at petrol or LPG filling stations.

(b) and (c) In case of erroneous charging at petrol and non-dedicated LPG filling stations, consumers could bring up the issue with filling stations direct. Assistance could be sought from CC if necessary.

     Regarding dedicated LPG filling stations, EMSD has been monitoring and publicizing the LPG price levels including approving LPG ceiling prices, publicizing ceiling prices through press releases, uploading ceiling prices onto EMSD website, and posting price information at conspicuous locations at dedicated LPG filling stations.

     On March 1, Sinopec (Hong Kong) Petrol Filling Station Company Limited (Sinopec) identified, on its own accord, error in the LPG price at its Ma On Shan and Yuen Long dedicated filling stations. Sinopec reported the incident to EMSD on March 2 and issued on March 3 a press release on the incident and the reimbursement arrangements.

Ends/Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Issued at HKT 16:04

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