Amid the panic buying sweeping UK supermarkets, some people are trying to make a massive profit by selling toilet roll and hand sanitiser online, Josh Halliday, the Guardian’s north of England correspondent, reports.
The Guardian found one UK-based eBay user selling a 72-pack of Andrex toilet roll for £84.99 on Monday morning – triple its retail price.
The same user, who appears to be based in the Midlands, appears to have bulk bought dozens of cleaning products and uploaded them all to eBay at huge mark-ups since Saturday night.
They include a 48 pack of Andrex loo roll for £59.99 - triple its retail price of £18 - and Wilko anti-bacterial wipes for £10.95, nearly ten times the retail price of £1. This seller and eBay have been contacted for comment.
There appears to be no shortage of people willing to pay such extortionate prices: an auction for a 72-pack of Andrex toilet roll had reached £51 on eBay by Monday morning - nearly double its retail price of £27 – with over five hours of bidding still to go.
Other sellers were also getting in on the profiteering. One seller had flogged dozens of Regina 9-pack toilet rolls (RRP £2.49) for up to £12.99 since Saturday night. Another had sold 18 packs of Andrex for £8.50 –more than triple its retail price of £2.50.
I read that Amazon is trying to clamp down on price gouging and ebay is supposed to have/be stopping sales of any Covid-19 related products. May still rely on these sales being flagged, though.
Plenty of cunts out there...