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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."

3 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Why stop (or start) here? by rickb928 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The FTC could shut down virtually the entire retail furniture market. Instantly.

    And that's not the only industry to examine in this manner. C'mon, man.

    --
    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
  2. Re:Flat out something by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    >> 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.

    This is also the case in some US states. For example, Los Angeles has figured out how to use California law on advertised discounts to chase down major retailers:
    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-retailers-lawsuit-20161207-story.html

    Given this announcement from FTC, I have to wonder if the 2016 round of unlawful discount litigation was just the preseason; now everything's in place for attorneys to tap directly into Amazon's revenue stream.

  3. Re:Amazon Prime by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At least they're not quite as blatant as Walmart, who advertise free shipping, but offer you a $5 discount if you pick it up yourself.