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Consumer fleecing is the new normal - Irma price gouging highlights sad truth


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2017 Sep 14, 2:02am   1,613 views  3 comments

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Since Hurricane Irma put Florida in its sights, there have been thousands of reports of price gouging on everything from water to gasoline.

The most notable complaint was not, however, the one alleging a US$72 charge for a six-pack of water. Rather, it was the $3,200 reportedly asked by Delta for a ticket out of Florida.

That’s because it wasn’t actually hurricane-related price gouging. Airlines were charging similar fares to last-minute buyers two weeks ago – and have been for years – long before Irma became a threat.

The fact is that airlines have made it a routine practice to jack up prices at moments of peak demand, such as right before a flight, when Americans dealing with family or business emergencies are willing to pay almost anything to get on the next plane out of town.

By bringing desperation to so many, Hurricane Irma is revealing a sad fact about many American companies, and not just airlines: that they have come in recent years to embrace taking advantage of desperate consumers as a central part of their business models.

The practice, called dynamic pricing, is intended to ration scarce goods and services, yet, as I show in a recent paper, it primarily harms consumers by making it easier for companies to fleece them.

First come, first served - Until recently, American businesses rationed access to goods or services that are in limited supply on a first-come, first-served basis.

How dynamic pricing rations differently - Dynamic pricing works differently, and more and more companies are doing it. Examples include Uber’s surge pricing, Disney World’s decision to increase prices when more kids show up to see Mickey and plans in the works at brick-and-mortar supermarkets to vary prices thousands of times per day, just like Amazon does online.

More: http://theconversation.com/irma-price-gouging-highlights-sad-truth-consumer-fleecing-is-the-new-normal-83858
#PriceGouging #DynamicPricing

Paper cited in main article: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2817523

Abstract

Antitrust guarantees a particular distribution of wealth between consumers and producers. Big data allows firms with pricing power to identify the highest price a consumer is willing to pay for a good and charge it to her. The practice upends the current distribution of wealth by allowing firms to charge the highest possible prices to everyone. Current antitrust rules cannot respond because they proscribe the formation, but not the exercise, of pricing power. Two options preserve the current distribution of wealth. One is deconcentration of industry. The other is use by government of big data to set prices.


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1   HEY YOU   2017 Sep 24, 10:08am  

Why do people hate Unregulated Free Market Entrepreneurship?

Rep/Con/Nazis that gouge should DIE!
2   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 24, 12:09pm  

There is a huge difference from South Florida culture in the early 80's when I first moved down here to now.

After hurricane Andrew in 1992, it was widely reported how impressed we were as a community that everyone treated non functional intersection traffic devices as a four way stop.
People were just stopping and waiting their turn. The community came together on everything, there was a definite comrade that this Hurricane season is totally missing.
Even during the 2005 busy hurricane season that brought us Katrina and Wilma and gave us our longest power outage that created the SOP they use now. After Wilma FP&L didn't form an Alliance with Utility companies all over the country until after about 3 weeks in. They were trying to do it alone and not have to pay out money. They buckled and called in the Calvary after noise in Tallahassee to bust up the Electric monopoly in Florida and allow more Electric companies. But that's all another thread.

But the noticeable difference in people this time around. The day after the storm I was driving around and found a convenient store. The guy would let 3 people then lock the door.
I guess the owner is an institutionalized turned out excon that got plugged a few times extra in a Trukish prison. So he only knows how to treat everyone in the community like a convict he must be. So I come walking up and he closes the door in front of me. I just wanted some coffee, so I told him. Look I fear assholes like you will break into my house, fuck you and your piece of shit store Asshole. I'll never buy shit from any of these stores I drove past treating everyday looking people like they are Grade School hooligan punks that going to mob scene the joint. I actually made a list so I don't forget.

Then I was in Publix deli line that wrapped all the way around to the Dairy a little under a few hundred feet at least.
So this Beetle Guise asshole comes rolling up on me with his cart and his Babe on his arm. And says...

"Excuse me... are you waiting for anything special?"
Me:"Special?"
Him:"Yeah, like Water or Batteries or such..."
Me:"Nah, man cant' you see where this line leads, batteries and water is over there!"
The guy in front of me:"This is the line for the Chicken"
Him:"Come on Iza, this is the Deli line..."
Me: "Pretty fucking special huh?"

Like this guy had the lowdown on the Publix deli chicken but he had to be cool he didn't want to create run on Chicken in the Chicken line. So he was going to point all of the idiots in the right direction out of his way. What an asshole!

We're surrounded by Foreign invaders that hate this country and everything about us. Natural disasters brings out the best in AMERICANS. But for these Liberal Voting bastards that hate our guts and everything we stand for. It brings out the extra charges to put us all in more pain and misery.
3   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 24, 12:48pm  

anonymous says
Who was behind all the price gouging and other scams back in the good old days ?

I bet you show your receipt to the guy at the door of the Big Box stores after you spent hundreds if not a few thousand don't you?
They will not see my receipt until its determined they refunding my money back. Meanwhile dindunuffins walk out the door with shit down their pants and the guy at the door says.
"Have a nice day" As they flag me down pushing my cart of legally purchased items. Not this guy.

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