Follow up:

Texas attorney general accuses firearms website of price gouging at start of pandemic
Katie Hall, Austin American-Statesman 6 days ago
3-4 minutes
a close up of a tool: Courts © American-Statesman file Courts

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has accused the Fort Worth-based website Cheaper Than Dirt, which primarily sells firearms, ammunition and hunting gear, of price gouging at the start of the pandemic.

The AG's office identified over 4,000 sales that involved price gouging and has directed Cheaper Than Dirt to pay $402,786 in refunds to consumers, according to court documents filed this month.

Over 100 people have complained to the AG's office about Cheaper Than Dirt, the Houston Chronicle reported earlier this year.

The same week that Gov. Greg Abbott made a pandemic-related disaster declaration in Texas, ammunition orders to Cheaper Than Dirt substantially increased. In response to the increased demand for its products, the website raised the prices on hundreds of its products, according to the AG's office.

The Texas AG's office has identified ammunition as a necessity and, as a result, is arguing that those price hikes were against the Texas Business and Commerce Code. The code forbids businesses from "taking advantage of a disaster" by selling "fuel, food, medicine, lodging, building materials, construction tools or another necessity at an exorbitant or excessive price."

Additionally, the following weekend that Abbott issued the disaster declaration, Cheaper Than Dirt manually raised its prices outside of its normal schedule.

"Making these manual 'real-time' price changes caused confusion for consumers because the prices consumers saw on the website pages when selecting items for purchase were different from the prices that appeared in the final check-out cart," the AG's office said in court documents.

Online court records do not list an attorney on file for the company, and the company could not be immediately reached for comment. Cheaper Than Dirt declined to respond for the Houston Chronicle's April report.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...pandemic/ar-BB1bZtN1

^^^God Bless Texas!!!

Seems that every time gouging comes up with Cheaper Than Dirt, you have people apologize for them.

Seems Texas doesn’t believe those who are explaining this away.

Shutter those bastards.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
It is simply well beyond my comprehension why anyone, specifically long time gun owners, is still doing business with those pieces of shit. How have they not gone out of business yet?

Ditto. I don't subscribe to their emails, get their catalogue, or check their website; they don't exist as far as I'm concerned.

I could understand some newb who doesn't know any better giving them a look, but no informed gun owner should be giving them the time of day, much less $$.

So wait. I don’t patronize CTD. But I’m curious : it’s not okay for them to raise prices but it’s okay for people to buy from them at “normal” prices and then resell at “gouging” prices? Business can’t gouge but private persons can scalp? One is gouging, the other is capitalism? There is a nuance here I’m not getting.

None of my dough....... I really loathe them......

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
So wait. I don’t patronize CTD. But I’m curious : it’s not okay for them to raise prices but it’s okay for people to buy from them at “normal” prices and then resell at “gouging” prices? Business can’t gouge but private persons can scalp? One is gouging, the other is capitalism? There is a nuance here I’m not getting.

Who says it's "ok"? Let's say, as an example, you are one of those "people", and I see you're doing it, I'm going to call you out. And try to pull that stunt on here in the Classifieds, and you'll quickly find out how "ok" it is.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
So wait. I don’t patronize CTD. But I’m curious : it’s not okay for them to raise prices but it’s okay for people to buy from them at “normal” prices and then resell at “gouging” prices? Business can’t gouge but private persons can scalp? One is gouging, the other is capitalism? There is a nuance here I’m not getting.

Yep people were happy to buy at severely over inflated prices in the classifieds from this very forum. I couldn’t personally gouge the Sig members but I did put thousands of rounds on GB and let the price fall where it may and people paid what I thought was ridiculous prices for it.

I like what Texas did but how do they have a leg to stand on. No one is forcing grown adults to buy anything. That’s on them.

I don’t patronize CTD either... but many of the places I do buy from also have inflated prices right now. But at least they have something to buy. The places that list items at more "normal" prices don't have anything available to sell.

Eventually, supply will catch up with demand and prices will drop. It sure makes me happy I followed Para's advice and stocked up when prices were reasonable.