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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums$400 for Purell? U.S. lawmaker urges Amazon to tamp down price gouging
Source: Reuters
$400 for Purell? U.S. lawmaker urges Amazon to tamp down price gouging
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc should stop third-party sellers from price gouging for items like Purell hand sanitizer as people seek to protect themselves from the coronavirus, U.S. Senator Edward Markey said in a letter to the online retailer on Wednesday.
A box of small Purell bottles that usually sells for $10 was listed online for $400, he said. One third-party seller listed a bottle for $600 on Wednesday afternoon. However, the Amazon brand of hand sanitizer was listed for $8.25 for a large bottle.
Amazon was not immediately available for comment but last week it barred more than 1 million products that inaccurately claimed to cure or defend against the coronavirus.
The virus, which first erupted in China, has sickened more than 94,000 people globally and killed 3,220. The disease was recently detected in the United States and has killed 11 people in this country.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com/400-for-purell-u-s-lawmaker-urges-amazon-to-tamp-down-price-gouging-idUSKBN20R384?il=0
MichMan
(11,959 posts)Why would anyone pay that amount ?
Kaleva
(36,327 posts)Same price I had paid in January.
Eugene
(61,938 posts)First available result: 8 oz 2-pack: $48.76
Two weeks ago an Amazon 64 oz bottle was going for about $12.
It only take a few 99.9 percentile low-information consumers to make $400 hand sanitizer movable.
Ms. Toad
(34,086 posts)There is no place for price gouging on Amazon, the company said in a statement.
On Amazon, some third-party sellers have been charging hundreds of dollars for a couple small bottles of hand sanitizer or a box of protective face masks.
https://www.marketplace.org/2020/03/03/coronavirus-facemasks-amazon-price-gouging/
stillcool
(32,626 posts)people being people. Got to blame someone.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)Reminds me of the price gouging on Gas Masks right after 9/11 (during the anthrax scare).
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)in the cleaning products aisle for ordinary price. Most happily, they had plenty of cans of hand wipes, the kind you pull through a hole in the top, for $5 for the ordinary ones. I purchased one container for each vehicle.
I haven't given thought to what Amazon should do or know what legal standards for these situations are. But I do know freedom requires enough looseness for individual pursuits of happiness and make choices. The more protective the laws, the more oppressive. There has to be a balance.
maxsolomon
(33,378 posts)How dare they regulate the Free Market!
tinymontgomery
(2,584 posts)I read, whether or not it is true, is to make our own sanitizer. Mix 70% rubbing alcohol with hand lotion and you have
made sanitizer. Not sure of the mix.