Free Gasoline Offer leaves Customers Dry

Over the past year, it seems almost every business has been giving away free gasoline. Buy a car: Get free gas.... buy a TV....get free gas....you name it.

Only one problem: Thousands of people now say they never received their free gasoline!

One Woman Feels Ripped Off

Elaine Burns showed me the so called prize she won for sitting through a timeshare presentation: $300 in free gas!

Elaine says "if we came out and listened to the 1 hour presentation we would receive gas vouchers."

The offer -- from a company called Freebiegas dot com -- required her to jump through some hoops. She would have to mail in receipts each month, to collect a 25 dollar monthly voucher.  But she did and after five months of carefully submitting gas station receipts....

"We submitted our first one in August 2008, and we have not gotten anything," she says. "Nothing. No rebate? Absolutely nothing."

A Thousand Complaints

She's not alone. The Better Business Bureau reports more than one thousand complaints about Freebiegas dot com, and gives the Largo Florida company an "F" rating.

And Florida's Attorney General, meantime, is now suing the firm for deceptive marketing after 500 complaints.

And its not just consumers complaining: Kim Dawson -- who sells water filters --says he handed the free gas vouchers out as a promotion....and is now forced to pay those customers out of pocket to keep them happy.

Kim says "we had to give the customers $100 cash to satisfy them."

Kim and Diane both tell me the next time someone offers them free gasoline...They plan to say "no thanks."

The Bottom Line

We tried to reach freebiegas dot com, but their phone number is now disconnected and the contact page on their website is down.

All customers can do now is contact the Florida Attorney Generals office.

So dont let this happen to you: If it's not a gas card you can use tomorrow, you may want to say don't waste your money.

I'm John Matarese.
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UPDATE Monday Feb 23, 2009

The company behind freebiebas.com, Tidewater Global Consultants, has told a court it is discontinuing the free gas program, due to the Attorney Generals lawsuit.

This means that you are likely to hear fewer "free gas" promotions from businesses in the future, because businesses tyopically don't hand out $300 of gasoline:  they simply pay $25 for the gas card, that is supposed to give you $300 in the end.