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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Heather Timmons

Gouged: why Americans are being ripped off – and what to do about it

Close-up of a hand with jade and brown bracelets inserting a credit card into a payment terminal at a store checkout.
Close-up of a hand with jade and brown bracelets inserting a credit card into a payment terminal at a store checkout. Photograph: Julia Kozlov/Getty Images

“Repeat after me: it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.” That’s the message to frustrated US shoppers in Gouged: The End of a Fair Price – and What That Means for Your Wallet by Lindsay Owens, economic sociologist and head of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive Washington thinktank.

Consumer rage is rising and no wonder – we are all living through the “reinvention of the rip-off”, Owens told the Guardian, an experience that is undermining Americans’ trust in the economy. Nothing short of a consumer uprising and a slate of tough new rules is going to fix the problem, she believes.

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