I was reading the news recently that Amazon Canada was fined for $1.1 Million due to some of its pricing practices where the list prices often seem inflated to make a sale sound better than it really is. The main points on the competition bureaus website stated the following:
-The Bureau’s investigation related to pricing practices on www.amazon.ca between May 27, 2014 to May 1, 2016.
-The agreement reached today resolves the Bureau’s concerns and sends a clear message to the marketplace that unsubstantiated savings claims will not be tolerated.
-The Competition Act ensures that consumers are not misled by references to inflated regular prices. When comparisons are made between a regular price and a sale price, they must be true.
-The Competition Act also contains a provision, introduced through Canada’s anti‑spam law, addressing false or misleading representations in all forms of electronic messages.
One topic that came up was how if $1.1 million even means anything to a huge company like that. At the same time this just reminds me why I never rely on what company’s tell me on how much I am saving on those sales days. This is kind of the first thing I have learned whenever I go shopping at big sales events as it’s just too common everywhere where company’s inflate its prices to make the deals sound better.
Even more reason to feel good when you are able to get those truly great deals such as taking advantage of every coupon and discount that you can.