Looking for a lawyerish answer to a question RE:price gouging

Hello all,

I had a discussion with a friend yesterday and I am in need of an opinion to a question of price gouging.

I won't tell you what side each of us were on but the point of contention is basically this:

In a small geographic area that includes a medium sized city in one state and a smaller sized city (basically the continuation of the same metro area) across a state line, several (all?) of the gasoline chains increase their prices per gallon by several (perhaps 10-20) cents on Thursday nights and lower the price back on Sunday nights. Also, the claim was made they do the same thing around the first and 15th of the month.

Now we both agreed on all (well most all) of the above. The question at hand is this: Is that situation price gouging? Is it illegal? Who do you complain to about this?

Also, opinions are welcome. That's why I posted it here.

gouging tends to refer to using an external factor - as an excuse to hike prices and doing so excessively (the day after 911 some gas stations jacked prices up to 4.99 a gallon.)

Price fixing generally means communication and coordination among retailers that set prices (include moving up and down at the same rate at the same time.)

Of course the terms are not mutually exclusive - there can be price fixing that gouges customers.

I don't know that gouging is necessarily illegal. Price fixing is, I believe, illegal. Gouging through price fixing is, I believe, illegal.