Harvey price gouging offenders will pay, Texas AG Paxton says

According to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton the state received numerous complaints of price gouging since Harvey initially made landfall Saturday.

“We had hotels charging seven or eight times what they’re supposed to, or their normal rate, we’ve had food places charging five times what they should for bread, water being charged $100 a case,” Paxton told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney on Varney & Co.

But the Attorney General says the state’s crackdown has been effective, telling Varney, “The number of complaints coming in has actually declined significantly.  We had a lot in the first day on Saturday, it’s gone down a lot.”

Paxton explained that the rule of thumb for officials is to investigate price increases greater than 10%.

“We’re not going to go after somebody that has a reasonable price increase, especially when we know gas prices are going up.  We will go after somebody that’s charging $20 a gallon which we had an example of recently.”