How would you feel if you went online to buy something – for example, a TV that’s listed at $495.00 – but when you get your order confirmation and credit card statement, you realize you got charged $535.00 for it instead?
When you inquire about the price hike, you’re given the run-around, but eventually you’re told that there was only one TV available at that price, and someone else bought it a split second before your order got processed. So they filled your order with the same TV at the then-available best price, which was higher.
And, they remind you, they have an “all sales are final” policy, so you’re stuck with the deal.
You’d probably raise holy heck, wouldn’t you? Or you’d vow never to patronize that company again, right?
So, you make your next online purchase from a different company… and the exact same thing happens! In fact, it happens every time you make an online purchase, adding up to significant lost dollars to you over time.
Well, as it was revealed last week, this is exactly what’s happening to stock market investors every day – and it’s been going on for years. And it’s costing every-day investors billions of dollars.
60 Minutes just did an exposé on it, titled “Rigged,” just as a much-anticipated new book by Michael Lewis called Flash Boys blew the lid off this latest scandal.
Lewis summed it up this way: