A Target store in the town of Bowen has apologised after a photo went viral on Facebook purporting to show a slab of bottled water being sold for $72 in the wake of floods in the area.
Customer Natalie Maher posted a photo to the Target Facebook page complaining of “price gouging” over a $72 price tag on a slab of water in the Bowen store after the cyclone:
Her post read:
Just got home from Woolworths after doing some shopping. Quickly popped into Target Country to get a few items and on the counter was a 24 pack of 600ml bottled spring water for sale, with a huge price stand in front of it. I thought the price was wrong and informed the check out chick that someone has placed the wrong price in front of the water. She informed me that No it is the correct price. How much was it you want to know? I hope your sitting down, $72. YEP $72. Talk about price gaugeing [sic] us while we are in need. Disgusting mongrels.
A Target spokesperson has responded to the image and claimed the price was a misunderstanding from an employee.
“It was an unfortunate misunderstanding at store level. A worker thought they were helping the community by selling the water by the slab,” she told News Corp. “But we don’t sell water by the slab, only individually.”
She confirmed that no slabs of water were actually sold at that price. It’s probably pretty easy to imagine an employee assuming that the price of a full, non-retail slab is just the individual bottle price multiplied by 24. That said, it’s not an ideal look – based on the comments on the Facebook page.
The spokeswoman also confirmed that individual bottles of water had been reduced to $1.
Source: News.com.au.
Photo: Facebook.
