Hurri-Can You Not Raise Prices So Much?

Price gouging. It sounds like some painful torture method to gut people out of their money.


Oh wait.
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.
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It is.

Okay, well maybe not actually gut people open like little, squishy money piñatas, but many businesses have tried to find some completely legal, non-lethal (okay only partially non-lethal) ways to successfully pull off the metaphorical meaning of this painful act.

Remember those wonderful watery days of 2013, where a super huge storm rocked New Jersey like a hurricane. Because it indeed was a hurricane. And her name was Sandy. She already sounds horrible. Anyways, Hurricane Sandy brought lots of lovely water to the people of New Jersey, but unlike a normal guest, Sandy decided it was totally okay to just drown the coast with water and blow down all sorts of cities. Well she's from the Atlantic Ocean, so she's not too familiar with our customs.

No Sandy, this is not how you treat your hosts.

After Sandy left, so many people were in need of help. This is where the devil comes in, disguised as businessmen (so essentially exactly the same, but with a nice suit). When you're homeless and in need of help, you tend to worry about only the necessities for living. Unfortunately for the New Jerseyans, some stores and businesses found it in their best interest to take advantage of their vulnerability. How did they accomplish this? By driving up the prices of their extremely essential items, otherwise known as price gouging.

You're probably asking, "Wait. Can't these people just find some better prices somewhere else?" And that would earn you a good pat on the shoulder and a pitiful look, because oh you poor, misguided child. When you're down on your luck, have no house, and a family to worry about, you aren't really given the opportunity to be picky about these sorts of things. Not to mention, people understandably have some economic reasoning behind the high prices. Let's take for example, the hotels. Lots of people lost their homes, so it's obvious that the demand for a furnished, temporary room is pretty high. So, if you really are in need of shelter, and so are hundreds of other people, do you really have the time and the stinginess to be picky about these things?

Of course, this line of thinking is what these businesses are betting on, which is how they get away with their criminal acts. And it's not just shelter either! There were gas stations and even a hardware store trying to benefit off the sadness of these really desperate people, just to earn extra cash.

Oh Satan, I didn't know you moved to New Jersey.

Thankfully, the people of New Jersey got their just desserts, in the form of sweet, sweet retribution. Yea sure these businesses temporarily got away with their price gouging and earned some sweet pocket money in the end, but man, did they really pay for it in the end. The whole issue of the price gouging ended up going to court and the New Jerseyans won, with a settlement totaling $282,844 over 8 businesses. That's a lot of regret for some selfish business practices.

Of course, price gouging does still happen, and sometimes it's much more subtle, and back-stabby. But at least we can confidently say in this case, Justice was the judge, jury, and executioner, and the penalty was death by shame and compensation. Ahhh, what a wonderful justice system we have sometimes.

Want to read the punishment in full HD detail? Well then let's go for a swim.