With near record pump prices at Lafayette "someone came in stole $70 in gas and took off?"
That's according to the Tippecanoe County Sheriff. Will it be the first of more drive offs to follow?
"It's actually pretty outrageous," says a driver
The new overnight price spike put Indiana fifty cents higher than the national average.
"This has never happened in my experience. In all the years I've been doing this." And the Purdue Expert has been doing it for long time. "That's just astounding."
Indiana and Michigan prices even higher than California.
In just six days the Indiana Attorney General has gotten 80 consumer complaints versus just 15 all last month.
"People can't pay their bills their just, making it difficult for everybody this isn't helping," says another motorist. "Prices are Nuts. "
For hard-hit consumers even a nickel makes a big difference. Over there at $4.20 a gallon a big line fueling up, across the street for $4.25 a gallon nobody there.
Planned and unplanned shutdowns at big refinery serving Indiana have cut the supply and raise our prices.
"That's bull. I don't believe any of that is the oil companies gas companies they want more money," says Nancy a burned up consumer.
"That's fishy that's right. You think you're jerking them up purposely? Absolutely absolutely," says another driver.
Purdue's Wally Tyner does not buy the conspiracy theories, "You can be pretty sure the Marathon folks in Detroit did not want to have an explosion. The BP folks want to get their refinery back up as soonest they can."
But the Indiana Attorney General does see a chance now to prevent future similar shocks.
He will talk with federal agencies and other state's to see if there's something that can be done to get refineries on maintenance schedules so gas keeps flowing and outages aren't so devastating.
"We can try to see what things can be done particularly in the midwest where we have such a tight refining capacity," says Tom Bodin, the Ag's Chief Financial Officer.
Purdue's Tyner thinks it could be into July before our fuel prices drop to normal advice: "if you can hold off filling up chances are it's going to be cheaper next week."
But Nancy had no choice. "I was on empty."
