Apple And Amazon Allegedly Conspiring To Make iPhones Unaffordable
The Hagens Bergman law firm filed a suit against Apple and Amazon for their alleged coconspiring to keep iPhone prices and the costs of other Apple products falsely elevated by reducing the number of third-party sellers allowed on the platform.
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The latest lawsuit against Apple and Amazon was filed this past Wednesday and involves the two companies working together to eliminate third-party sellers from Amazon, which in turn, raises iPhone prices and prices of other Apple items. The law firm, Hagens Berman, filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. This is not the first time this particular law firm has sued Apple or other large companies.
Hagens Berman has previously filed a lawsuit, similar to the most recent one involving Apple and Amazon, and won. The previous lawsuit resulted in a total of $400 million being refunded to people who had purchased e-books. Apple conspired with major book publishers to eliminate competition and raise prices, the same thing that is currently happening with Amazon and Apple to raise iPhone prices.
One would think that Apple and Amazon had learned a valuable lesson with the previous lawsuit and would not do something that was previously proved in a court of law to be, unlawful, but greed and power know no bounds. The latest lawsuit involving the two companies further proves that the companies simply do not care and will do anything for an extra dollar, including eliminating competition and raising already high iPhone prices. Luckily, law firms like, Hagens Berman, exist to fight corporate greed and represent consumers in federal court.
The allegations against Apple and Amazon are not surprising as they have been involved in a similar scheme before. The latest lawsuit has a few different parts. The first part involves an Amazon agreement that reduced the third-party iPhone sellers from around 600 to a mere seven sellers.
The elimination of third-party sellers gave room for Apple and Amazon to raise their iPhone prices as there was no one to compete with, leaving customers with essentially no one to buy from but them. Third-party sellers offered no benefit to Apple and Amazon thus resulting in the companies working together to squash them. Once the reduction of sellers began, iPad and iPhone prices rose greater than ten percent.
Apple and Apple have violated antitrust laws with the agreement, the elimination of third-party sellers, and the increase in iPad and iPhone prices. The two companies are leaders in their respective markets and the fact that they can blatantly operate without a moral code is alarming. Consumers should be able to trust companies to get the best products at the best value.
Customers come back to companies like Apple and Amazon time and time again and instead of the companies valuing their customers and doing right by them, they choose to take advantage. This is a sad reality of many giant companies, they simply do not care about consumers and are so fixated on profit on top of profit.
If you have recently purchased an Apple product from Amazon, your purchase may qualify you for financial compensation as Hagens Berman put up a fight for our consumer rights in court. Apple and Amazon will likely be forced to reimburse consumers who were affected by the fixed iPad and iPhone prices. As far as the companies learning a valuable lesson, it’s highly unlikely.
