34 Attorneys General send letter to online retailers urging them to stop price gouging
Attorneys General join to fight price gouging
We've all seen store shelves during this pandemic and items considered essential to fight to the spread of COVID-19 have been in and out of stock. That's leading people to jack up the prices for things like hand sanitizer and Lysol wipes -- even toilet paper.
SILVER SPRING, Md. (FOX 5 DC) - Attorneys general from 34 states have asked companies like Amazon, Walmart and Ebay to take better measures to prevent price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letter went to Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, Ebay and Craigslist and urged them to create and enforce policies to prevent price gouging and create a portal for shoppers to report users who are unfairly inflating prices.
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Brian Frosh of Maryland, Karl Racine of the District and Mark Herring of Virginia signed the letter.
"We're very concerned that people will be using and are using their platforms to price gouge," Frosh said.
Amazon, Facebook, Walmart and Ebay have told media outlets they have instituted practices to discourage price gouging.
"It's in our interest, it's in their interest, it's in consumer's interest for them to be selling honest goods and services, provided by honest retailers and I think they should be getting the ones who are out there to fraud people, to cheat people, getting them off their platforms," said Frosh.
Craigslist did not respond to FOX 5's request for comment.