Galloway Hotel Reaches $25,000 Settlement for Price Gouging Following Sandy

A Galloway hotel will pay $25,000, including $1,403.49 in consumer retribution, after settling a price gouging lawsuit related to Hurricane Sandy with the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs on Monday.

The lawsuit alleges that Devastaya Inc.'s Studio Inn and Suites, at 257 East White Horse Pike, engaged in unlawful price gouging in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

After the customer retribution, $18,845.68 represents civil penalties and $4,750.83 will reimburse the State’s attorneys’ fees and investigative costs.

An additional $23,729.82 in civil penalties is suspended but will become payable if the business violates terms of the Consent Judgment within two years.

The New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs also reached settlements with the Berkeley Hotel and an East Hanover Exxon gas station on Monday for a total of $89,845.68.

“These hotels allegedly raised their room rates by well over 100 percent of their normal prices, and this gas station increased its prices in excess of 25 percent – all at a time when a natural disaster turned the normal laws of supply and demand upside down, New Jersey families were in dire need of shelter and fuel, and price gouging was expressly prohibited due to a state of emergency,” Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman said.