Bend.com: Website launched to protest Shell's pricing: “Brent DeHart, co-owner of DeHart’s Mission Street Shell in Salem Oregon launched a website called screwedbyshell.com to protest price discrimination policies”: “One of the purpose of the website is to provide a way for other independent Shell station owners to share their frustrations about Shell Oil.” (ShellNews.net) 3 May 05
SALEM – In a last chance effort to save his business, Brent DeHart, co-owner of DeHart’s Mission Street Shell in Salem Oregon launched a website called screwedbyshell.com to protest price discrimination policies. DeHart is also picketing a nearby corporate owned Shell station just down the street to call attention to his plight. The picket will begin on Monday May 2nd at 8:00 am on the corner of Mission and 25th Streets in Salem, Oregon.
When Texaco sold assets to Shell Oil, the Texaco station just down the street became another Shell station. Since then, DeHart maintains that Shell Oil has unfairly competed, and now targets his station, at 2220 Mission St. SE, by charging him more for fuel than other Shell stations in Salem. The Corporate-owned Shell down the street has sold to the public at the pump cheaper than it sold wholesale to its own dealer.
Unable to compete, DeHart has spent over a year trying to handle the issue himself and with his attorney.
They (Shell) won’t answer or talk to me or to my lawyer. We’ve tried for months. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on lawyers. They tell me I need a million dollars to fight Shell’s big corporate attorneys. I don’t have that kind of money. We are on the brink of losing everything.
One of the purposes of the website is to provide a way for other independent Shell station owners to share their frustrations about Shell Oil.
“We’ll be inviting dealers nationwide to sue our website to tell their stories,” says DeHart.
With gas prices higher than they have ever been and recently reported record profits by oil companies, consumers deserve to know if this kind of corporate treatment of independent dealers is related to the high gas prices they are paying at the pump.
Brent DeHart is a City Councilor, in Salem, and is a former President of the Oregon Gasoline Dealers Association. He served as the media spokesman for the Gasoline Dealers in Oregon, and as such, DeHart is frequently contacted by local media for information on gasoline price trends.
For more information, visit www.screwedbyshell.com.
http://bend.com/news/ar_view.php?ar_id=22447
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