More on price discrimination - how “mortgage prisoners” are getting over charged

Following on from Matt's eye opener on price discrimination between rich Mac users and the rest of us, here's another story about how mortgage lenders are charging existing customers, who are unable to switch banks because of negative equity, higher interest rates than other customers. These so called "mortgage prisoners" will get some relief after the Financial Services Authority have published proposals to end the practice.Also on a not entirely unrelated topic, another pricing strategy "price gouging" is making headlines these days. According to Wikipedia price gouging is "a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities much higher than is considered reasonable or fair". This rapid increase in prices often occurs after a demand or supply shock like for example, the opportunistic price rises that many Americans faced after Hurricane Sandy "making a box of matches $10, a loaf of bread $7, generators around $1,100 and people were bartering and selling gas on Craigslist for around $8 a gallon". Great article here along with the infographic below discussing the legalities of such a practice.