Skip to main content

oronavirus: US man who stockpiled hand sanitiser probed for price gouging

Mr Colvin bought all of the hand sanitiser he could find in stores across TennesseeA man who stockpiled 17,700 bottles of hand sanitiser to sell on Amazon is being investigated for price gouging.
Matt Colvin, from Chattanooga in Tennessee, told the New York Times he had faced a "huge amount of whiplash".
Online platforms have cracked down on sellers listing coronavirus-related items at inflated prices.
Mr Colvin later said he would donate his goods but on the same day Tennessee's attorney general opened an investigation, the Times reported.
Mr Colvin said that from 1 March, the day after the first coronavirus-related death in the US was confirmed, he and his brother had spent three days driving across Tennessee, buying up all the hand sanitiser they could find.
He then listed the bottles on Amazon, selling some for as much as $70 (£57).
Presentational white space
Banner image reading 'more about coronavirus'
Banner
Amazon then deleted listings of hand sanitiser, sanitising wipes and face masks with marked-up prices, while eBay outright prohibited the sale of any of these items.
After the initial article was published, Mr Colvin faced a major backlash, with many accusing him of attempting to profit off a global crisis.
He expressed remorse in a follow-up interview, saying he "had no idea that these stores wouldn’t be able to get replenished".
Price gouging - the act of re-selling an item in high demand with a "grossly excessive" price mark-up - is prohibited in the state of Tennessee if the governor has declared a state of emergency.
If found guilty, a person can be fined up to $1,000 (£813).
In a statement, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III said: "We will not tolerate price gouging in this time of exceptional need, and we will take aggressive

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cryptic-polific investment have been an investment platform where you make money online

I will teach how to earn money from your comfort zone. With a trusted PHP mining company. You can start with a minimum of 20$and earn a huge amount after 12h ours of your mining duration period of time. Join now and earn massively: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:crypto-polific.com

Commit to Excellence to archive your goal

  The quality of your life will be determined by the depth of your commitment to excellence, no matter what your chosen field. —VINCE LOMBARDI  RESOLVE TODAY TO be the very best at what you do. Set a goal for yourself to join the top 10 percent of your field, whatever it is. This decision, to become very, very good at what you do, can be the turning point in your life. Virtually all successful people are recognized as being extremely competent in their chosen fields. Remember that no one is better than you, and no one is smarter than you. And everyone who is in the top 10 percent today started off in the bottom 10 percent.  Everyone who is doing well was once doing poorly. Everyone who is at the top of his or her field was at one time in another field altogether. And what countless others have done, you can do as well. Here is a great rule for success: Your life only gets better when you get better. And since there is no limit to how much better you can become, there is n...

what is the most frightening thing that you have ever seen happen in life

It’s a man looking over his family during the British Raj in India. There were many cases of cannibalism and he feared someone would try to kill and eat his children or wife. I acknowledge this is a difficult picture to look at— but I included it for a reason. Many people in the US/West aren’t even aware of the terrible famines that swept through India and which are comparable to the holocaust in deaths (an estimated ~30 million people have died in famines in India). This was taken from the Great Famine of 1876–1878, which was far worse than the infamous Bengal Famine. It was caused by a crop failure/drought and was exacerbated by the crown’s export of wheat abroad. In total, 5.6 - 9 million people died (it’s hard to get exact figures). And within huge statistics like these, are forgotten stories. These are individuals and families, who slowly faced the despair of knowing they had no food and would have no food in the near future. They faced the horror of knowing there was ...