MCMASTER ISSUES 12 SUBPOENAS TO GASOLINE RETAILERS

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster was on WACH FOX in Columbia this morning with the always lovely Ashleigh Messervy to discuss gas price gouging, only hours before he issued a dozen subpoenas to state retailers.

McMaster signed off on the subpoena’s after investigating more than 3,000 complaints of gas price gouging sent to his office and other state and local law enforcement agencies since invoking the state’s anti-gouging statute Friday. That laws allows McMaster to pursue criminal action against those accused of charging of an “unconscionable price” for gasoline.

During the WACH interview, McMaster warned would-be price gougers that “it’s just not worth it.”

Said McMaster, “You might make a little extra money gouging somebody, but you’re going to pay a lot more than that at $5000 per gouge.”

Violators could also face up to 30 days in prison.

McMaster did caution however, that not all high gas prices are illegal.

“We’ve seen some [gas prices] that are at $5.29 and $5.39 [per gallon] and we’re asking questions about those,” McMaster said. “They may be gouging, they may not be gouging. We’ve had some distributors tell us that the price of gas they’re delivering is $5.12 to the filling station.”

The attorney general also urged consumers not to panic. “We understand the supplies are fairly steady and don’t go fill up every container you can find with gas,” he said.

If you think you spot a case of price gouging, you are asked to contact local law enforcement, either via a special email address — GasPrices@SCAttorneyGeneral.com — or through an information phone line set up at (803) 734-3970.

“If there are some gougers out there, send the information to us. We’re looking real hard and if we find one who’s gouging, we promise we’ll prosecute every one of them.”