- Thermometers are selling for hundreds of dollars on Amazon as the online retailer seeks to curb price-gouging during the coronavirus epidemic.
- One listing was charging $504 for a contactless thermometer at the time of publishing.
- Other listings ran upwards of $100 or $200 for thermometers similar to ones selling at CVS for around $60.
- Amazon said it's working to stop artificially-inflated prices on its platform, and said earlier this month that it had removed over 530,000 items like face masks and hand sanitizer from its platform because of price gouging.
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Thermometers are selling for hundreds of dollars on Amazon as the online retailer tries to curb price-gouging during the coronavirus pandemic.
One listing for a non-contact infrared thermometer was selling for over $500 on Amazon at the time of publishing. Other listings were charging over $100 or $200. A similar non-contact thermometer was selling for around $60 on CVS' website.
Amazon told Business Insider in a statement that "there is no place for price gouging on Amazon. We are disappointed that bad actors are attempting to artificially raise prices on basic need products during a global health crisis and, in line with our long-standing policy, have recently blocked or removed hundreds of thousands of offers."
In a statement to customers on its website, Amazon said that it is "working to ensure that no one artificially raises prices on basic need products during this pandemic."
Amazon said earlier this month that it has removed over 530,000 items and 2,500 sellers from its platform for price-gouging. The company also said it is assisting state attorneys general in prosecuting extreme cases of price-gouging.
A Tennessee man who hoarded over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer before being blocked from selling them recently donated the supplies after Tennessee's attorney general investigated him for price-gouging, according to a report for The New York Times.
Do you work at Amazon and know more about the company's approach to preventing price-gouging? Contact the reporter of this piece, Bryan Pietsch, at bpietsch@businessinsider.com.
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