Best Buy apologizes after Texas store charges $42 for cases of water
 

https://i.imgur.com/zvzUB8e.jpg

Best Buy apologized after a store in Cypress, Texas overpriced packs of bottled water on Friday as then-Hurricane Harvey began to unload a historic amount of water on a large swath of the state.

The Texas' southeast is dealing with three feet of water and counting from what has proved to be an unrelenting storm, forcing residents to flee their homes for shelter. Part of that flight involves stocking up on necessities such as water, and someone noticed that a Best Buy in Cypress was selling its bottles at a steep price - up to $42.96 per pack.

"This was a big mistake on the part of a few employees at one store on Friday," Carly Charlson, a public relations representative at Best Buy, wrote in a statement provided to Mashable. "As a company we are focused on helping, not hurting affected people. We're sorry and it won't happen again."

Charlson explained that Best Buy doesn't generally sell cases of water, and "the mistake was made when employees priced a case of water using the single-bottle price for each bottle in the case."

Multiplication led to an inflated figure.

Plenty of businesses have outsized their prices as the storm rages and residents try to make it somewhere safe, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Monday.

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Price scalping should be a crime during a declared emergency.

Rationing the goods on the shelf, when done fairly, should be OK

Only unethical at most.

Apologist culture power!

Mom, go down to the BestBuy and pick up some water:upsidedow

Would they have to pay extra for getting the water in the 1st place ?:2 cents:

I thought price gouging is illegal.

Sounds like employees were cashing in..

It is against the law in Texas to price gouge during an emergency.

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/cpd/price-gouging

big bucks!!

From what I saw only with regard to ticket scalping.

As Baddog pointed out, in Texas price gouging is illegal during an emergency. We have some of that here in Oregon as well. You can't price gouge on gas no matter what (a store down the street from me got in serious trouble doing this). I think most states have some kind of price gouging laws in place.

I would be more liberal on that - supply and demand. It is not like you deny gas or water, exactly the same number of people would get it, just at different supply and demand style prices.

So you are fine with people who may have lost their homes and are in need of drinking water being bilked out of their money?

It is in FL..

As I said, it is unethical, but should not be illegal.

Shops selling at regular rate may also be hiked out of their money (during the flood they have higher costs/expenses, presumably). Not that is is the same, but just some additional thought.

Basically I am liberal here as I said because of supply and demand which is the principle I believe in. During the flood - supply is limited, demand is at least the same or actually even higher.
So yeah, it is "not nice", but not a criminal offense in my books.

One more thought - if price remains the same it means that first people would grab/buy as much as possible (most likely much more than they need). With price being higher, they will think and leave more for others. It should platy out beneficiary in terms of wider distribution. Think about it as well, this is very important point.

If it were some luxury item, I wouldn't care if they hiked the price up, but when it comes to food and water and the basic things a person needs to survive, I think it shouldn't be legal to jack the price up so you can make more money on someone's suffering and sudden need. Just my opinion.

Yeah wouldn't even think of Best Buy as the place for bottled water.

$42.96? Had to be iPhone branded water.

and TX
They have water, chips, soda, energy drinks and candy; everything a gamer needs.