Posted on 04/17/2020 3:26:32 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Amazon said in a letter to investigators on Thursday that more than 6,000 seller accounts were suspended due to price gouging amid the CCP virus pandemic.
The company’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, said the firm also removed more than 500,000 listings on its website for price gouging.
“Amazon turned over information about sellers we suspect engaged in price gouging of products related to COVID-19 to 42 state attorneys general offices,” Bezos wrote in a filing. “To accelerate our response to price-gouging incidents, we created a special communication channel for state attorneys general to quickly and easily escalate consumer complaints to us.”
The suspensions of accounts came after a letter from Congressional lawmakers to Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons called for investigations into reports of price gouging.
“The FTC should be just as vigilant as ever during the COVID-19 pandemic,” a bipartisan group of lawmakers said in a letter to Simons, dated Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
They haven’t gotten then all! It’s outrageous that Amazon still has so many jerk sellers right now.
At some point about six weeks ago, I was looking on Amazon for a batch of those masks (typical cheaper type you’d wear in a hospital). For a box of 50, one distributor was wanting $50. Ridiculous sum, and he probably made $40 profit off each box.
“For a box of 50, one distributor was wanting $50. Ridiculous sum,and he probably made $40 profit off each box.”
*****
Then dont buy. Really simple eh? This is a free capitalist economy. You sound a like a whiny leftard and of course, I find phony conservatives here. A freeper bitching about profit? Good God. If he sold the masks for $100 each, what do you care? You want it free?
THANK YOU!! It seems that we have to state the obvious to a few cry babies. No one is forcing them to buy anything. This is why the free market will always survive.
price gouging = a made up crime
My wife is a PA and still sees patients. We couldn't find masks anywhere. Period. She made several varieties herself but it's a cumbersome process for someone having to wear it in 8 hour shifts.
Enter a "price gouger" on Amazon. Yeah, we paid $1.20/mask for a package of surgical masks. She's been wearing masks in medicine for decades, and she said these were top notch. I gladly paid their price.
I went back to the seller's page on Amazon after having read this thread. Yep. He's gone.
Nice going Amazon. Now buyers can't get it at any price. And if I had known they were going to do this, I might have doubled the order.
My garden wagon’s tires are getting flat. Went to order a cheap air compressor to re-inflate them. Now I am a PRIME customer and seldom have to pay shipping so I got out of the habit of looking at the shipping charges.
I found one for $25 that would meet my limited needs and ordered it. It was only when I got the confirmation email did I discover they added $26 for shipping. I cancelled the order.
Fortunately this was not a necessity. If they get too flat I can take them off and drive up to Big O tires and they will put the air in for me.
But this just shows some are taking advantage of the situation.
Never studied economics did you? The market sets the prices. If the price is too high nobody buys. If the price is too low a few people buy the whole supply. So-called gouging is just supply and demand at work. Which would you rather have, toilet paper at $4 a roll or no toilet paper?
I’m wondering when Amazon is going to reduce their Prime charges since delivery went from two days to two weeks.
I wonder if they suspended any of the deceptive Chinese sellers peddling inferior products at inflated prices, or only the American ones?
Chinese sellers seem to get away with murder on Amazon.
Amazon has algorithms that constaantly adjust prices, sometimes while things are in your cart. I wonder if any algorithms have been suspended.
I used to buy nearly everything from Amazon, but since this started, I hardly buy anything. They never have anything, and what little they do, takes weeks to get. I am so disappointed in them.
Yes, someone is forcing them to buy. Price gougers buy up the masks at $10 and have cornered the supply, then sell them for $50 to people the state mandates must wear masks. Since they can’t afford the gouger’s price and the state won’t let the people outside without one, people have the right not to buy and stay home and starve. For what are now essential medical supplies, price gougers need to be nailed to the wall.
Yep, and still some people won't get it. Don't like someone's price? Don't bitch and whine about it, move on and buy elsewhere. Or don't. It's that simple.
They've gone back to using UPS, etc.
I'm seeing tremendous delays all over. I ordered some bullets (for reloading) from MidwayUSA and it won't be here till next week.
I ordered some other bullets from Berry's and they are so far behind they don't even have an anticipated delivery date. Plus, they're not answering their phone or responding to emails.
It's nuts!
In mid-February, when I started stocking extra food, I ordered four pounds of an item from Amazon for $11.45. Since, many vendors have doubled the price and two pounds now cost about that much, and four pounds $20.00+.
Personally I am in the midst of rehabbing a 2600 square foot 1874 house. I’ve needed odds-and-ends from Lowe’s Home Depot and Amazon but also Craigslist
This is nothing. (Isn’t amazon allowing indie “sellers” now, too, just like eBay used to be? It’s a little different being an indie person vs. a corporation.)
I’ve been griping right back at all my “neighbors” in the area about “gouging” vs. “limits”. They all post “shocked face” in FB or NextDoor when I post Walt Williams and say that so-called “gouging” is just supply vs demand.
And I further make my point with the TP in particular. I was getting pretty angry that I can’t ever find TP both because of hoarders, and too many buying, and “gougers” (idies will gouge in the parking lots while the stores there won’t). THE LIMITS AIN’T WORKING! People just come back and buy more or go to the next store. UP THE PRICE!
I ordered a toilet seat attachment bidet in December for $48. Then my daughter asked if I could install one in her home (during the toilet paper shortage). The price for the same unit went to almost $300.
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