6/22/2023 0 Comments Amazon crazy shippingTwo years earlier, the Journal discovered that when computer users visited Capitol One's website, the bank read information stored in the computer's browser history to determine which credit card offer it made available. To cite a few non-Amazon examples at random: in 2012, the Wall Street Journal learned that travel site Orbitz charged higher prices to customers who visited their site with a Macintosh computer rather than a PC - the rationale being “Apple computers are more expensive than PCs, so Mac users are probably richer than PC users.” Thus, a Mac user looking for hotels on Orbitz would get offerings that cost up to 30 percent more than the offerings given a PC user. The result? He watched the price of a DVD offered to him for sale drop from $26.24 to $22.74. One buyer reportedly deleted the cookies on his computer that identified him as a regular Amazon customer. In September 2000, outraged some customers when its own price discrimination was revealed. In 2005, CNN's law blog informed readers about the practice of dynamic pricing, and noted that Amazon got burned for it as early as 2000: Nothing new there, especially not for Amazon. Not only do prices move up and down on a regular basis, but also they're often adjusted based on exactly which customer is mulling a purchase. Although consumers say such price revisions feel like bait-and-switch, they're entirely legal. That's when the game's price jumped from $54.99 to $59.99. Determined, she cleared out the cart and tried again …. She checked her computer's viewing history and, indeed, the game's original price was listed at $54.99. A few minutes later, she scanned the cart and noticed the $54.99 had jumped to $70.99. "fter sifting through several pages of options, settled on a set for $54.99. In May 2012, the consumer blogger for The Oregonian, Portland's daily newspaper, noted that “Amazon's 'dynamic' prices get some static,” and described the experience of one customer buying a set of mahjongg tiles from Amazon: It's called “dynamic pricing,” and Amazon isn't the only company that does it. The practice of charging different customers different prices for the same item is fairly common among online sellers - and perfectly legal in most instances. Oddly enough, the simple fact that Amazon charges different prices to different people for the same item might not, on its own, be sufficient evidence. Yet an Amazon Prime member, who paid $79 for “free” shipping this year, is charged a base price of $13.99 for the item no matter what.Īmazon has not commented on either suit, citing pending litigation. In some cases – if the customer bought at least $35 worth of items at once, thus qualifying for free shipping – the total cost of the item would only be $10. In other words, an ordinary customer buying that item and nothing else from Amazon would pay a total of $14: $10 for the item and $4 for shipping. "f the price of an item is advertised for $10 with $3.99 shipping and the wishes to match or top their price, the would charge $13.99 or higher." Both of them raise the same general issue, a specific example of which is taken from Burke's suit: The first lawsuit was filed in February, by Amazon Prime member Marcia Burke of Alabama the plaintiff in the second suit is A. That is the allegation made by plaintiffs in two recent lawsuits against the company: that Amazon Prime members who got “free” shipping were actually charged higher base costs to cover it. Still, the argument goes, it's a good deal for frequent Amazon shoppers because, in addition to e-book lending and other free-with-subscription content, Amazon Prime gets you free shipping on all qualified purchases (as opposed to non-Prime Amazon, which only offers free shipping on certain items, and then only when your total purchase costs $35 or more).īut maybe Amazon Prime's “free” shipping isn't free at all. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you probably know already that the annual cost of membership is going up to $99 the next time you renew.
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