Coronavirus: Ohio AG sues couple accused price gouging hand sanitizer on Amazon

COLUMBUS — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit against an couple from Athens who allegedly hoarded bottles of hand sanitizer and tried to sell them on Amazon for 11 times their normal retail value, an Ohio AG’s Office spokesperson said in a media release Thursday.

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The lawsuit accuses Marcus and Ellen Fultz hoarded hundreds of bottles of hand sanitizer and attempted to sell them on Amazon under the name danielle-on-2nd, the Ohio AG’s office said. Yost said the couple saw an opportunity to profit on the coronavirus pandemic, rapidly acquired bulk quantities of hand sanitizer, and tried to sell them online, raising the price by over 1,000 percent in some cases.

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The lawsuit said one of the products the Fultzs attempted to sell was an eight ounce bottle of Purell hand sanitizing gel that sold on Amazon for $3.53 before the pandemic. After the pandemic, they sold the same sized bottle for $39.44, Yost said.

The state’s lawsuit is asking for the couple to reimburse the customers who purchased the price-inflated products and pay civil penalties.

“This is appalling behavior and should be answered in a court of law,” Yost said in the media release issued Thursday morning. “Even more, it points out the need for a specific price-gouging law.”

Senate Bill 301 was introduced in April and was drafted with the Ohio AG’s Office that would establish consumer price-gouging protections in Ohio law, the spokesperson said in the media release. The bill remains pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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