Vendor: Amazon Jacked up Prime Day Prices, Misleading Consumers

Megalith

Megalith

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Jason Jacobs, founder of Remodeez, a company specializing in foot deodorizers and other odor stoppers, is accusing Amazon of jacking up his product’s prices on Prime Day to deceive consumers into thinking that they were getting a deal: a product that normally cost $9.99 was allegedly being listed for nearly $20. Amazon claims that they do not engage in surge pricing, however.

“They showed the product at $15.42 and then exed it out to put ‘$9.99 for Amazon Prime Day.’ And on the final day, the price was like $18.44. So, we put a support ticket in right away and I rallied some friends through social media to go to their complaint board and complain,” Jacobs tells FOX Business. Jacobs says the suggested retail price came back down to $9.99 the following day. As part of Jacobs’ agreement with Amazon, the online retailer does have the right to set their own pricing as they see fit, he says.
 
Sounds like the Kohl's lawsuit with price gauging on Black Friday a few years back.....not surprised if this happened. Although its possible someone coded an expiration date of the " deals" wrong and they went back to normal a day early.
 
Amazon de-listed the Nvidia Shield Pro on Prime day because they were selling the standard version for $20, it magically reappeared in stock after Prime day. I'm sure they were engaged in all sorts of shenanigans for Prime day.
 
burton14e7 said:
Amazon de-listed the Nvidia Shield Pro on Prime day because they were selling the standard version for $20, it magically reappeared in stock after Prime day. I'm sure they were engaged in all sorts of shenanigans for Prime day.
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You mean for $20 off ($180), not just $20, hah.
 
I thought everyone under the sun did this. We know JC Penny and such stores mark up prices, so they can then mark then down. I saw several items on the Prime deals that I knew weren't normally $200, but on sale for $99. You see this a lot on Black Friday. I've told my sons for years, that every time you see a half off sale, assume it's half off the double marked up prices. Like others have stated, don't assume it's really a deal, just because it's marked as "on Sale"
 
Walmart is a HORRIBLE offender in this dept. In fact the practice was just outlawed in the EU Union I believe. Walmart raises prices very temporally then lowers them and they then advertise the "lower" price to create a falsehood of "lower prices" on these products giving consumers the impression they are getting a good deal when in fact there never was a deal.

The problem is, you never see the higher price that it was "supposedly" lowered from, ever. Maybe fucking elves change out the prices at 4am in the morning each day. Who knows.

All BS.
 
Yeah this is not suprising. I remember when circuit city or comp usa went under, they did a 'liquidation' ( i think a separate company organized it).. every thing was higher tan retail, just with a fantasy list price attached to it.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Walmart is a HORRIBLE offender in this dept. In fact the practice was just outlawed in the EU Union I believe. Walmart raises prices very temporally then lowers them and they then advertise the "lower" price to create a falsehood of "lower prices" on these products giving consumers the impression they are getting a good deal when in fact there never was a deal.

The problem is, you never see the higher price that it was "supposedly" lowered from, ever. Maybe fucking elves change out the prices at 4am in the morning each day. Who knows.

All BS.
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Yeah, now 24.35, DOWN from 24.95.
 
Bawjaws said:
Always use camelcamelcamel to check pricing history on Amazon before falling for these "amazing sale prices".
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You may want to check out an add-on called keepa. It'll pop up a widget that will show you a graph of historical prices for the product you're looking at so you can make the determination right on the page if it's really a good deal or not
 
Steam was accused of doing this, too.

But it seems to be the thing to do - hike the prices a month or two before a big sale and claim outrageous savings.
 
So it's the retailers fault that people are too stupid?.... I believe some regulation is good, but not when it's to protect stupid people from themselves. They have plenty of tools available to be able to verify whether it's actually a good deal or not.
 
Biznatch said:
So it's the retailers fault that people are too stupid?.... I believe some regulation is good, but not when it's to protect stupid people from themselves. They have plenty of tools available to be able to verify whether it's actually a good deal or not.
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People are just plain stupid.

In this day and age, just because someone says it's a sale doesn't mean it's truly less than what it normally goes for.

The people who got ripped off are doubly stupid because it's not like amazon doesn't have price trackers since it's all on the web (camelcamelcamel and keepa). You need to do your homework when finding deals. Or if you want to be lazy about it, there are deal sites which does the homework for you (slickdeals.net).
 
Hypergreatthing said:
People are just plain stupid.

In this day and age, just because someone says it's a sale doesn't mean it's truly less than what it normally goes for.

The people who got ripped off are doubly stupid because it's not like amazon doesn't have price trackers since it's all on the web (camelcamelcamel and keepa). You need to do your homework when finding deals. Or if you want to be lazy about it, there are deal sites which does the homework for you (slickdeals.net).
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Not just this day and age, retailers have been doing this for a long time. Consumers just have way more access to information/services to be able to quickly check this. But no, they see sale and click buy, then find out they were duped and blame it on amazon.... No personal accountability anymore (But that requires some level of intelligence)....
 
Dalexx said:
I thought everyone under the sun did this. We know JC Penny and such stores mark up prices, so they can then mark then down. I saw several items on the Prime deals that I knew weren't normally $200, but on sale for $99. You see this a lot on Black Friday. I've told my sons for years, that every time you see a half off sale, assume it's half off the double marked up prices. Like others have stated, don't assume it's really a deal, just because it's marked as "on Sale"
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They do it because it works and people actually prefer it that way... insane I know.

JC Penny a couple of years ago tried to get out of the eternal 50% off sales and just offerred lower prices.

They got raked over the coals and beat down, the CEO got fired. Stock dropped by 50%. Huge failure. AT the core I believe its because people just wanted 50% off/sales, the actual price/costs matter for only a few customers cause most don't make the effort to analyze anything.

Its the same reason why crap is STILL priced with .99 cent increments... cause it still works no matter how people claim they are not fooled (same with advertising).
 
I'm still amused when I see a gallon of milk at the grocery store for 4.99 or 2 half gallon jugs for 1.99.
 
Biznatch said:
Not just this day and age, retailers have been doing this for a long time. Consumers just have way more access to information/services to be able to quickly check this. But no, they see sale and click buy, then find out they were duped and blame it on amazon.... No personal accountability anymore (But that requires some level of intelligence)....
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I mean that in this day and age with the information directly available to them they still fall for marketing schemes like this. Previously before computers and databases tracking prices, it would take some effort to manually record the price and do some comparisons to see if it was a good deal or not. Retailers were doing all sorts of tricks to avoid this like changing the product codes so that they're unique to the store.
 
Harbor freight was sued for this and end up settling. I know my cousin bought some stuff on prime day because she assumed she was getting a great deal. I know what she bought wasn't really much cheaper than it normally sold for. It really does trick people that assume they are being told the truth. It's pretty deceptive to say this is a $200 crock pot that you have on a special sale for $80, but you pretty much always sell it for $100 otherwise (its not really a $200 crock pot). Personally I always check prices but lots of people don't and that's what they are banking on.
 
"Amazon claims that they do not engage in surge pricing, however." Yeah yeah Amazon would never do that ;););)
 
Ocellaris said:
Cliff notes: Don't be stupid and buy stuff just because it is "on sale"
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Agree, newegg is even worse with their sales price. Newegg is hardcore manipulating prices for ssd and ram "sales". One day day it'll be one price next they'll raise it 30 dollars and claim there's a 30 dollar discount..
 
SomeoneElse said:
Sounds like the Kohl's lawsuit with price gauging on Black Friday a few years back.....not surprised if this happened. Although its possible someone coded an expiration date of the " deals" wrong and they went back to normal a day early.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-michaelkors-settlement-idUSKBN0OS2AU20150612
Everybody lies
Michael Kors was accused of creating an "illusion" of deep discounts by using tags containing made-up "manufacturer's suggested retail prices," or MSRP, and offers to sell the products at lower prices, termed "our price."

Shoppers said the suggested retail prices were artificial because the tagged products had been made exclusively for Michael Kors outlets, and the London-based fashion house never intended to sell them at those prices.
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SixFootDuo said:
Walmart is a HORRIBLE offender in this dept. In fact the practice was just outlawed in the EU Union I believe. Walmart raises prices very temporally then lowers them and they then advertise the "lower" price to create a falsehood of "lower prices" on these products giving consumers the impression they are getting a good deal when in fact there never was a deal....
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You mean like Microsoft's new Xbox One X console?
Preorder one soon from Walmart and save $500!! Regular price, $999... Sale price, $499.
 
Damar said:
In other news... water is wet... :p
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Water isn't wet. Wetness is a description of our experience of water; what happens to us when we come into contact with water in such a way that it impinges on our state of being. We, or our possessions, 'get wet'.
 
Jon855 said:
Water isn't wet. Wetness is a description of our experience of water; what happens to us when we come into contact with water in such a way that it impinges on our state of being. We, or our possessions, 'get wet'.
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The point of the joke still stands, even though you'd rather be more technically correct about it. ;)

Some people just have to be killjoys I guess. Makes comedians sad..... :(

I'm still dumbfounded that people are surprised this sort of thing goes on. I mean... wake the hell up and pay attention to life, sheesh.
 
I do a bit of shopping on amazon. For the heck of it I browsed on prime day and noticed some things like this too. The sales/search pages would show one thing, click on it and the price suddenly went up on the product page. Very shady and not something I usually see on amazon. Ultimately between lack of interest and this stuff I didn't order anything that day.
 
Biznatch said:
So it's the retailers fault that people are too stupid?.... I believe some regulation is good, but not when it's to protect stupid people from themselves. They have plenty of tools available to be able to verify whether it's actually a good deal or not.
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Yeah its enough with regulating certain needs like food, water.. but no need for superfluous stuff like toys and shit ( i do love my low prices though)
 
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