Learn how Gumtree’s promotes fair trading on its platform.
Price gouging and extreme profiteering
Price gouging, or extreme profiteering, is when sellers significantly increase the prices of items in high demand in order to charge extra for something people will really want to buy. We recommend that you never pay more for an item on Gumtree than you would in a shop.
To help ensure fair prices are always possible, we do our best to let you know when price gouging is likely for a particular product – for example, for high-demand items such as the latest games consoles. We will also take down items for sale when we spot a seller who appears to be engaging in extreme profiteering.
Some examples of our efforts
Here are some recent ways we’ve put these principles into practice:
- During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, we suspended the sale of medical PPE on Gumtree, so that sellers could only make deals directly with the hospitals and other service-providers who needed it most. We also restricted sales of toilet roll, face masks, and antibacterial and sanitiser products to make sure nobody paid unfair prices.
- When the PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox series S consoles were released, we posted reminders for shoppers not to pay over the odds and proactively monitored the prices of these items on Gumtree.
Now you’ve learned about fair trading, why not read our tips on detecting scams.
