Hotel rooms for $ 1,000 a night. Gasoline prices are rising. Even bottled water prices double or triple overnight.
Texas officials say the winter storm has wiped millions of residents from power and water offers a number of unscrupulous merchants the chance to take advantage of the situation by charging exorbitant prices for essential supplies.
A system set up Wednesday in Houston for residents to report price gouging incidents received more than 450 complaints in less than 20 hours, said Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, the chief prosecutor for Texas’s largest county.
“The main things we see are hotels setting ridiculous prices,” said Menefee. “We have seen allegations of packets of water being sold for two to three times the normal price, or packets of water being split up and the individual bottles being sold at outrageous prices.”
Dashawn Walker, 33, searched for a hotel room on Tuesday evening to avoid the cold of his impotent Dallas apartment. After finding all the booked rooms in Dallas, he eventually drove to an extended-stay hotel in the suburb of Lewisville to pay just $ 474 for a one-night stay.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “I mean, why would you go to hotels in the middle of a crisis? Like, dude, come on now. Everyone just tries to make it and they take advantage of a crisis, which is so unfair to people who really can’t afford it. “
Such price increases are illegal under Texas law, which prohibits the sale of fuel, food, medicine, shelter, building materials, or other supplies “at an exorbitant or inordinate price” during a state or federal disaster statement.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office urged residents who suspect they are victims of price gouging to file a complaint with their office. Violators may be required to indemnify consumers and be subject to civil penalties for up to $ 10,000 per violation. If the victims are elderly, additional fines of up to $ 250,000 can be imposed.
Larry Hamilton, a Dallas hotelier, said that while there may be legitimate complaints about price gouging, he also wondered if some of the complaints weren’t worth it. He said prices at his 193-room Aloft Hotel in downtown Dallas averaged $ 94 a night, and a customer got furious when he got a $ 109 price.
“He called my general manager and threatened to report us for gouging,” Hamilton said. “In addition, and this is Economics 101, price is what balances supply and demand, and it is an important regulator. The price is something that fluctuates, and it should. “
The hospitality industry has taken a financial hit in the past year, largely due to government-imposed closures and people’s reluctance to travel during a pandemic. Hamilton, who had to close another boutique hotel in Dallas due to power outages, said hotels in the area had less than 10% occupancy during the pandemic.
“It has been a bloodbath,” he said.
In Missouri, Governor Mike Parson said he has asked the attorney general there to investigate complaints about price gouging related to natural gas, which has increased amid supply problems and the extreme cold snap that envelops a wide swath of central and southern US.
“I realize the shortages be it fuel, whether it’s natural gas or whatever it is, but I don’t want anyone to take advantage of that either,” said Parson, adding that he found it frustrating that the prices ” sky high ‘rise after a while. bitter cold temperatures for a few days.
“I can’t imagine what it will be like with sticker shocks when a lot of people get their bills. It’s going to be a tough environment, ”said Parson.
In Houston, Menefee encouraged businesses to interact with their neighbors and that “we should watch each other.” If not, a visit by a state or local researcher to a company accused of price gouging is usually enough to bring prices back to normal.
“If you increase prices, you might get on our list,” he said. “If you raise them to a level that really raises eyebrows, you can count on one of our detectives knocking at your front door.”
Murphy reported from Oklahoma City. Reporters Jake Bleiberg of the Associated Press in Dallas and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.