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FTC Probing Allegations of Amazon's Deceptive Discounting (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the deceptive-discounting dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: As part of its review of Amazon's agreement to buy Whole Foods, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into allegations that Amazon misleads customers about its pricing discounts, according to a source close to the probe. The FTC is probing a complaint brought by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which looked at some 1,000 products on Amazon's website in June and found that Amazon put reference prices, or list prices, on about 46 percent of them. An analysis found that in 61 percent of products with reference prices, Amazon's reference prices were higher than it had sold the same product in the previous 90 days, Consumer Watchdog said in a letter to the FTC dated July 6. Amazon said in a statement that Consumer Watchdog's study was "deeply flawed." "The conclusions the Consumer Watchdog group reached are flat out wrong," Amazon said. "We validate the reference prices provided by manufacturers, vendors and sellers against actual prices recently found across Amazon and other retailers."

6 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. They do what every other retail store does... by PablosBrain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They do what every other retail store does for discounts.

  2. Flat out something by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Prices found" does not equate to sales prices.
    Some countries with actual consumer protection requires "before" prices to be a price that had multiple actual sales to unaffiliated entities, not just what it was announced at or sold internally at.
    If I announce my fridge for sale for $50,000, and next week for $150, that's not a $49,850 discount.

    1. Re:Flat out something by thegreatbob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've always worked with the 'list price' in any context as follows:

      Is vendor selling it at list price? Don't buy from them.

      --
      There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  3. Amazon Prime by pnutjam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They should really investigate Amazon Prime, they advertise "free" shipping, but inflate prices to account for shipping.

    --
    Cheap storage VM.
    1. Re:Amazon Prime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They also "guarantee" two-day shipping, but often don't meet the guarantee. The customer's recourse when this happens is to have the price of their shipping refunded, which is $0.

  4. Do your research and decide your own value by Tyr07 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can't rely on corporate stores to tell you the proper worth and price for anything.

    The proper price in the free market is whatever you can get someone to buy it for.

    The source by circuit city literally had people put out sale prices that were higher than their normal prices.
    You really have to learn to look at the quality of the product, if possible how many people use it, see if you can find actual reviews. Look for the problems and make a decision based on those reviews. Ultimately decide how much it's worth to /you/ to have it. Not buy it because you were told it's a good deal.