Q: I was wondering if you could address the issue of gasoline pricing. No other businesses that I know about charge by the tenth of a penny. Doesn't it seem deceitful to charge an amount for a gallon of gas that is impossible to pay? I can buy a gallon of milk or ice cream, but not gas! It just rubs me the wrong way. Can you look into this practice?

-- PAULA HRABOS,
North Fayette

Still, your disdain for the way gasoline is priced was shared by at least one prominent person -- the late Sen. Joe Coleman from Iowa.

He thought the practice was deceptive, too. So in 1985, he pushed through legislation that barred stations in Iowa from pricing gas in fractional cents. That meant that gas selling for $1.199 a gallon -- the approximate price at the time -- had to be rounded up to $1.20, or rounded down to $1.19.

Violators were threatened with a $100 fine and a month in jail. "We don't have a one-tenth of a coin," Coleman explained at the time. "It just bugged me for years."

Four years later, however, the law was repealed -- some say deceptively because the amendment was never discussed in the Iowa Senate -- and the sneaky little nine sneaked back in.

The congressman who spearheaded the repeal, Iowa Sen. Michael Gronstal, told me last week that the only reason the practice of charging fractional cents was outlawed was that it was a "pet peeve" of Sen. Coleman's, not because of an outcry from consumers.

"I never, in 22 years in the Legislature, had anyone complain to me about the 9/10ths of a cent," Gronstal said.

Back in the mid-1980s, "I just didn't quite get why we were intervening" in free-market pricing, he said. "Would we say to a grocery store that you can't sell chicken for 47.5 cents a pound? No we would not."

Still, as Paula pointed out, an argument can be made that fractional-cent pricing is false advertising. There's no way to pay or get change for a fraction of a penny, so customers can't buy exactly one gallon of gas at the advertised price.

Gronstal dismissed that notion, however, saying few people buy a single gallon of gas, so it shouldn't matter.

For its part, the gasoline industry seemed stumped.

"That's an interesting point that I don't have an answer to," Dan Gilligan, executive director of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, said of the false advertising charge.

Fractional pricing "has never been an issue that's garnered much attention," he said.

He said the most credible theory he's heard explaining why gas stations started using fractional cents is because it reflects the way federal and many state gasoline taxes are levied. Currently, for example, the federal gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon. (When the tax was first imposed in 1932, it started out as a flat 1 cent per gallon and rose to 1.5 cents a year later).

But that doesn't explain why gas prices most often are expressed in nine-tenths of a cent, instead of, say, four-tenths or five-tenths, though they occasionally are seen that way.

It also doesn't explain why the tradition persists. Back when gas pumps first emerged, saving a penny on a 10-gallon purchase meant something. Today, who would notice?

So why not just price gasoline like everything else, in whole cents?

"I have no logical argument why that wouldn't be a good idea," said the association's Gilligan. "It certainly would seem to be simpler to go to a flat, say, $1.59 a gallon."

Gilligan cautioned that any effort to mandate whole-cent pricing should come at the national level, not through individual states. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to gas stations near borders with neighboring states where fractional pricing was still allowed.

He contends customers would flock to the unregulated stations for the same reason that items are priced at $3.99 instead of $4. It sounds cheaper even though the savings are trifling.

But don't count on any changes in the way gas is priced any time soon, Gilligan said. The idea has never even come up at any of the many industry meetings he's attended.

"Maybe your story will generate some debate," he said.

In case that doesn't work, Paula, I have an idea.

According to the fine print, manufacturers' coupons typically have a cash value of 1/100th of a penny.

Maybe someone could collect 90 of them and try using them as exact change for a gallon of gas.

I.D. scammer snared
Government investigators have shut down an Internet-based identity theft scam that conned hundreds of customers of America OnLine and Paypal into providing bank account and credit card numbers and other personal information that was used to steal their identities and make unauthorized purchases.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers received e-mails that appeared to come from AOL or the online bill-paying service Paypal, asking for updated/corrected billing information. Customers were warned that if they failed to respond, their accounts would be canceled.

A hyperlink in the e-mail took consumers to fake AOL and Paypal Web sites to enter the information.

The defendant in the case, Zachary Keith Hill of Houston, is awaiting sentencing, the FTC said.

The commission has issued a consumer alert on so-called "phishing" scams with tips on how not to get snookered at www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/phishingalrt.htm.