1 settlement in thousands of price-gouging cases

Florida got thousands of complaints about price-gouging when Hurricane Irma hit, but so far Attorney General Pam Bondi's office has settled just one case.

Bondi's office was inun dated with 7,500 complaints in the weeks after the deadly storm struck the state in September. To date, her office has settled one case for $25,000.

A hotel near Miami International Airport admitted hiking room rates by as much as 138 percent.

“It has been three months since Irma hit Florida, and we have 10 active investigations ongoing,” a spokesman in Bondi’s office said Wednesday.

The active cases include a Mexican restaurant in Tampa, hotels in Tarpon Springs and Coconut Grove, three South Florida gas stations and two propane distributors. Bondi’s said Wednesday it expects to have more cases.

“Price-gouging investigations are time-intensive, however, we do expect to be able to confirm more investigations in the weeks ahead,” said Whitney Ray, a spokesman for

Bondi’s office.

As Irma approached Florida, Bondi was on TV urging residents and evacuees to report price gouging. “On top of fines, I will destroy their reputations,” she vowed about price gougers.

A statewide consumer group wonders why Bondi’s office can’t find more cases of gouging.

“We were bombarded with Bondi’s ads before, during and after the storms,” said Bill Newton of the Florida Consumer Action Network in St. Petersburg. “We could not help question whether the ads were to mention her name or actually go after price gougers. It does seem like there should be more than one case.”

Bondi’s office said it received more than 14,000 calls and complaints during the state of emergency, including allegations about products not covered under Florida’s price gouging law, such as air fares, and correspondence lacking basic information, such as a business name or a product’s price.

The review resulted in 7,500 complaints that warranted closer scrutiny, Bondi’s office said.

State laws, enacted after Hurricane Andrew, prohibit extreme increases in the price of essentials — food, water, ice, gasoline, lumber and hotel rooms that consumers need in an official emergency. Violators face civil penalties of $1,000 per violation and up to $25,000 for multiple violations in a 24-hour period.

The law compares the price of the item or service during the state of emergency with the average price charged in the month before the declared state of emergency. Investigators call it price gouging if there is a “gross disparity” between the two charges.

The state said four of the nine open price gouging cases involve gas stations in Hialeah, Cutler Ridge and Marathon, Suburban Propane and Ameri-Gas Propane.

Four involve hotels: the Mayfair Hotel & Spa in Coconut Grove; Aloft Miami Dadeland; Days Inn in Wildwood; and the Tarpon Inn in Tarpon Springs, where a woman who answered the phone declined to comment. A ninth case involves a restaurant and produce stand, El Noa Noa in Tampa, where an employee referred questions to a manager, who did not return calls.

Sun Sentinel database editor John Maines contributed to this report.

Information from the Associated Press and the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau was used in this report.