Hotels, gas stations, and even stores selling water, the most basic need of all, were caught doing the unimagineable…taking advantage of flood victims who lost everything they owned.

Best Buy put out a statement in response to a viral photo of cases of bottled water being sold at a Texas location for $42.96.

With people in Texas concerned about price gouging during the hurricane, this image got a lot of attention today:

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/902571298521399296

People on Twitter were outraged by Best Buy selling water for that much during Hurricane Harvey.

Mashable obtained a statement from Best Buy apologizing for what they explained was just a mistake:

“This was a big mistake on the part of a few employees at one store on Friday,” Carly Charlson, a public relations representative at Best Buy, wrote in a statement provided to Mashable. “As a company we are focused on helping, not hurting affected people. We’re sorry and it won’t happen again.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said yesterday he’s received hundreds of complaints of price gouging over the weekend. –Mediaite

A Texas BEST WESTERN was also caught in the act of price gouging:

Star Telegram – When KXAN TV in Texas checked rates online as Hurricane Harvey was strengthening and about to make landfall in Texas, a room with two queen beds was between $120 and $149 a night.

But when a KXAN TV crew from Austin showed up on Saturday to get a room at that same hotel—a Robstown, Texas Best Western Plus, 20 miles from Corpus Christi—the clerk at the front desk quoted a price nearly triple what the crew had seen online: a staggering $321.89 a night, according to KXAN.

The TV crew cried foul, and pushed back against the price. Eventually, the clerk admitted the room rates were much higher than usual. “Weekends start at $149, sometimes we start at $189,” the clerk told KXAN.

 

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