Gouged
The End of a Fair Price--and What That Means for Your Wallet
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Lindsay Owens
Everywhere you turn, Americans are getting ripped off: Online ticket sellers hide behind exorbitant extra fees. Landlords use software to band together and organize artificial rent hikes. Ride-sharing apps spike their fares when it rains. And car companies install software that reports your driving behavior to auto insurance companies so that they can hike your premiums. Surveillance pricing, algorithmic price fixing, and other high-tech forms of price gouging are the latest frontiers in corporate profiteering—and they’re gutting the American economy and your wallet.
In Gouged, economic expert and veteran consumer advocate Lindsay Owens takes us inside the corporate boardrooms where pricing decisions are made, uncovering the tricks, traps, and grifts corporations use to jack up the price you pay at checkout. From data collection to drone surveillance, modern technology provides companies a staggering arsenal of sophisticated tools to squeeze as much money out of consumers as possible, resulting in record profits. Drawing on original reporting, shareholder meeting transcripts, and rigorous economic analysis, Owens takes aim at Big Tech behemoths, airlines, health insurance companies, and others to pull back the curtain on how price gouging is coming for almost every line item in your household budget, from doctor visits to rent, groceries to diapers, and even your summer vacation.
Gouged arms us with the essential knowledge we need to first recognize, and then sidestep, the traps that corporations try to conceal from us. In a world where price gouging has become ubiquitous, Gouged is necessary reading for anyone looking to stay an informed consumer, save money rather than surrender it to greedy CEOs, and stand up for fair prices in America.
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Critic reviews
“Gouged is an entertaining exposé into the high-tech methods (from dynamic and drip pricing to dark patterns) that big businesses and ruthless employers use to cheat consumers and workers. With this brilliant debut, Lindsay Owens offers us shocking stories and essential strategies we need to fight together for fair prices and wages.”
—Jennifer Taub, author of Big Dirty Money: Making White Collar Criminals Pay
“Ever have the sneaking suspicion that you're paying more for something online than you should be, or than your neighbor is? You probably are. And you should be outraged. Lindsay Owens tells us how we got here and what we should do about it. Required reading for all American consumers and policymakers.”
—Rana Foroohar, author of Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World
—Jennifer Taub, author of Big Dirty Money: Making White Collar Criminals Pay
“Ever have the sneaking suspicion that you're paying more for something online than you should be, or than your neighbor is? You probably are. And you should be outraged. Lindsay Owens tells us how we got here and what we should do about it. Required reading for all American consumers and policymakers.”
—Rana Foroohar, author of Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World
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