Deceptive Pricing May Land West Covina Gas Station Owner In Jail
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A Southland business owner could face jail time for deceptive advertising at a local gas station.
Owner Daniel Choi of Daniel's Auto Service Center on the corner of Azusa and Garvey in West Covina was charged last Wednesday with nine counts of false advertising.
A conviction could carry stiffer penalties for Choi than a standard misdemeanor since he still on probation after a conviction for the same offense last year.
KNX 1070's Chris Sedens reports Choi made a practice of leaving ambiguous prices on the signage outside his station.
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"What we were consistently finding is that one of the digits was missing off of the pricing consistently, so that drivers approaching assumed that the price was the same as it was at a neighboring gas station across the street, when in fact it was significantly higher," said Ken Pellman of Los Angeles County Weights & Measures.
Choi was convicted of the same offense last year and appeared to make an effort to comply with an August 2010 court judgment.
Investigators, however, soon noticed the numbers were missing again in March.
