The way businesses set prices has undergone a fundamental shift over the past ten years, and consumers are often the ones paying the price — literally. According to consumer advocate Lindsay Owens, shoppers are increasingly being deliberately overcharged through pricing tactics that are difficult to detect and even harder to challenge. Owens, who leads the consumer advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative, argues that what looks like ordinary price variation is often a calculated strategy designed to extract as much money as possible from each individual buyer.
Owens explores these practices in her book "Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — And What That Means for Your Wallet," published in September. In it, she documents pricing schemes that corporations work hard to keep hidden and offers practical guidance on how consumers can shield themselves. Her central message is that the old-fashioned rip-off has not disappeared — it has simply been upgraded with powerful new technology.
"What we're seeing is Big Tech reinventing the rip-off," Owens said. She describes the tactics as old tricks that have been "supercharged" by digital tools, allowing companies to execute pricing strategies at a scale and speed that would have been impossible in the past.
One of the most troubling developments, according to Owens, is personalized pricing. Under this model, retailers gather extensive information about individual shoppers — including browsing habits, demographic details, and past purchase history — to estimate how much each person can be persuaded to pay. The goal is not to offer a fair market price but to identify the maximum amount a given customer will accept.
Hotels, for instance, have begun setting room rates based on where a customer is located geographically. Airlines are analyzing browsing data to determine how much they should charge for a particular ticket. Grocery stores are deploying technology to experiment with different price points and observe how customers respond. In each case, the same product or service may carry a different price tag depending on who is asking.
Beyond simply collecting data, companies are also using algorithms to run pricing experiments on live consumers. These automated systems can test various price levels in real time, learning from shopper behavior and adjusting costs accordingly. Because the experiments happen quietly in the background, customers typically have no idea they are participating in them or that the price they see may be tailored specifically to them.
The implications for consumers are significant. When prices are personalized, comparison shopping becomes far less effective, because the price one person sees may differ entirely from the price shown to someone else. That undermines a basic assumption of fair markets: that identical products carry identical prices and that shoppers can make informed decisions by comparing options.
Despite these challenges, Owens maintains that there are still ways to secure a fair deal. Her advice centers on making it harder for retailers to track your behavior and build a detailed profile of you. By covering your digital trail, you reduce the amount of data companies can use to calculate a personalized price.
One straightforward step involves limiting how much browsing information you leave behind. When retailers cannot connect your searches, clicks, and purchases into a single profile, they lose much of the insight they rely on to set individualized prices. This makes it more difficult for them to determine what you might be willing to pay.
Owens also suggests being strategic about which purchases deserve this level of caution. For inexpensive items like a pair of shoes, the effort may not be worth it. But for major expenses such as airline tickets, where prices can vary dramatically, taking extra precautions could translate into meaningful savings. The higher the stakes, the more valuable it becomes to obscure your identity and browsing history.
The broader concern raised by Owens is that these practices erode the very idea of a fair price. When companies can tailor costs to each individual's perceived willingness to pay, the concept of a shared, transparent market price begins to disappear. Consumers are left navigating a system designed to obscure rather than clarify what a product actually costs.
For shoppers, the takeaway is a mixture of caution and empowerment. While the pricing landscape has grown more complex and more opaque, awareness of these tactics is the first line of defense. Understanding that the price you see may be crafted specifically for you is essential to avoiding the trap of paying more than necessary.
Owens's work arrives at a moment when scrutiny of corporate pricing practices is intensifying. As technology continues to evolve, the methods companies use to set prices will likely become even more sophisticated. Whether regulators and consumers can keep pace remains an open question — but for now, experts like Owens insist that informed, proactive shoppers still have tools at their disposal to protect their wallets.
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