‘I hope the seller gets the virus’: £13 soap sells for over £60 on Amazon as customers complain of profiteering

Customers on Amazon are raging about profiteering vendors as sanitising products with overinflated prices continue to flood the e-commerce site, despite efforts to remove the offending listings.

A 5-litre bottle of Carex hand soap that customers say is usually sold for around £13 was listed on Amazon for prices of £63.93 and upwards, prompting complaints.

One customer wrote a review titled ‘What a ripoff hope the seller gets the virus’, and added: “I bought this months ago at £13ish. Now £89.99 robbing b*****d. Should be prosecuted for profiteering.”

It is unclear at which point the product was being sold at £89.99, but other reviews suggest the price had been more than quadrupled compared to just a few weeks ago.

One person wrote: “Supplier [is] just capitalising on your fear of the virus … It’s doubtful if you will get what you order. I didn’t.”

Another said: “You can get this exact size of bottle at Costco for £5.99. So this person selling is taking advantage with this price.”

The product is just one of a raft of other hygiene-related products that have made their way onto Amazon at outrageous prices in recent weeks,with sellers accused of taking advantage of fears surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

For example, a 600ml bottle of Defendol hand sanitiser, priced in Superdrug at under £4, has been listed on Amazon for a whopping £86.

In another listing, a nine-roll pack of Andrex Supreme Quilts Toilet Tissue is priced at £45.99 — nine times the price of the same product listed on Sainsbury’s website at £5.475.

Antibacterial surface wipes have also been price-gouged, from £16.99 for a 304-sheet pack of Kirkland Signature Household Surface Wipes on Costco up to £79.98 on Amazon.

Amazon has been trying to get the number of products attempting to price-gouge customers under control since February, when the virus began reaching almost every corner of the globe.

Last month, the site also barred more than a million products from sale that claimed to cure or defend against coronavirus, reported Reuters.

In a statement, Amazon said: “There is no place for price-gouging on Amazon. We are so disappointed that some sellers 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 tens of thousands of offers. We proactively remove offers that violate our policies.”

Not everyone is trying to make quick money out of the pandemic, which has infected more than 125,000 people and killed 4,6713 globally.

In Scotland, the owner of a corner shop, Asiyah Javed, and her husband Jawad, have been assembling “coronavirus kits” to hand out to vulnerable members of the community such as the elderly.

The kits contain a face mask, hand soap and hand sanitiser wipe, and the couple hand them out all over their village of Falkirk.