No, Gas prices at 7-Eleven do not cost $7.11

A photograph has circulated on social media showing a 7-Eleven store with an actual gas price of $7.11 - but is this really true?

Well, the short answer is no, it's not.

The image initially went viral after it was posted on Reddit's "Funny" forum that appeared to show gas prices at a 7-Eleven store had reached $7.11.

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"The prophecy has been fulfilled," the caption read alongside the image (which has since been removed by moderators), and the photo quickly went viral with nearly 63,000 upvotes.

Soon the photo reach other platforms like Twitter as billionaire Tesla and Space X boss Elon Musk posted it captionless to his 99.2m followers and received 573,000 likes.

Though according to the fact-checking website Snopes, the photo was originally posted on Reddit's "mildly interesting" forum back in March 2021 by Reddit user u/mbeemsterboer.

In the original post, the picture was captioned: "This new 7-Eleven’s test gas prices."

But people quickly shut down the idea that this was the real gas price at the store, since in the comment section one person wrote: "lol these aren't actual prices. It was before the gas station was open, they just used 7.11 as the gas prices on the sign to have them working prior to opening."

"OMG. It's a 7 11 store, not the actual price. They wanted to test the sign so they put 7 11 (the name of the store) on the sign. They aren't even open yet. The windows are papered over," another agreed.

And this was confirmed by the company themselves, as a spokesperson told Snopes: "This photo is more than a year old. In the past, it was common for building contractors to test the fuel price signs at newly built, but not yet open, 7-Eleven locations to $7.11 in honor of the store’s name."

“We have since requested that building contractors stop this practice and hope this recently re-circulated photo did not cause any confusion for 7-Eleven customers."

Well, there you have it - mystery solved!

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