Beware Online Gas Cards and Other Dubious Deals
With gas prices reaching historic highs, it's no wonder that people are looking for ways to save money—and what better place to start looking than online? A number of sites promising discounted or even free gasoline have popped up all over the Web like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Unfortunately, most of these offers are just what they appear to be: too good to be true.
Several sites promise you gift cards that you can redeem at a gas station. But before you can get your gift card, you first have to scroll through a selection of online offers. If you decline all the offers, you'll be told that you have to accept at least two in order to receive your card.
Other sites purport to let you "lock in" the price of gas at something below market rates—say, $2.50 a gallon. Again, the devil is in the details. Usually the lower per-gallon rate only applies to a limited number of gallons. And in some situations, the gas stations who appear to be the sponsors of the offer have never heard of them. Of course you won't find out any of this until you've given out contract information, provided demographic details, signed up for online offers, or provided some other benefit to the people using this scheme to harvest marketing data.
Basically, the gas crisis has provided yet another opening for unscrupulous Web marketers to gather information they can resell or use to spam people with more offers they don't want. There's almost no way you'll get the deal you're promised—so it's best to ignore the lure of cheap gas and keep your Web surfing confined to legitimate, established sites.
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