Best Buy apologizes after Houston store sold $42 cases of water after Harvey
Best Buy is apologizing after a Houston store was reported to be selling cases of water for $42 after Hurricane Harvey hit the region.
A tweet showing the Best Buy prices went viral earlier Tuesday.
“This was a big mistake on the part of a few employees at one store on Friday,” a Best Buy spokesman said in a statement to The Hill. “As a company we are focused on helping, not hurting affected people. We’re sorry and it won’t happen again.”
“Not as an excuse but as an explanation, we don’t typically sell cases of water. The mistake was made when employees priced a case of water using the single-bottle price for each bottle in the case,” the statement continued.
The apology comes amid
widespread reports of price gouging in the wake of the storm.
A spokeswoman for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) told The Hill earlier Tuesday that the office had received at least 600 complaints of price gouging and fraud after Harvey hit the region.
"As of our last tally this morning, we have 600 complaints pertaining to Hurricane Harvey (including scams, fraud, price gouging and charities), and that number is still rising," spokeswoman Kayleigh Lovvorn wrote in an email. "The majority of these complaints involve price gouging for bottled water, fuel, groceries and shelter."