As coronavirus panic shopping started, one of the retailers drawing the most price-gouging complaints in Texas was a Fort Worth-headquartered, online-only gun store that customers say isn’t living up to its name: Cheaper Than Dirt.

“I said, ‘Wow, this can’t be right,’” said Houstonian Kevin Switzer, who filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s office after coming across the prices while shopping for ammunition. “‘There’s no way. Two or three weeks ago, this price was way less.’”

Switzer is one of 123 to complain to the office so far about Cheaper Than Dirt. Switzer and other shoppers reported markups such as a package of 1,000 rounds of .223 Remington rifle ammunition that once cost around $300 being sold for $900. Others said the company was canceling orders under previous prices claiming they were out of stock only to immediately re-list the product at a higher price.

“No more different from the folks trying to amp up hand sanitizer on eBay or Amazon,” Switzer said. “This is no different from that.”

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The attorney general’s office had received more than 1,000 complaints of price gouging before the month of March was over. Many had to do with sticker shock on typical essentials, such as toilet paper and gasoline, and most were directed at big-name companies such as Walmart and Amazon. But over a weeklong period in mid-March, at the peak of panic buying as Texas mayors and county judges called stay-at-home orders, no company received more than Cheaper Than Dirt.

A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment.

It’s unclear whether guns and ammunition are items subject to Texas’ price gouging law.

Kayleigh Date, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the consumer protection division is reviewing the complaints. She would neither confirm nor deny whether Cheaper Than Dirt is under investigation. But a high volume of complaints can trigger an investigation, she said.

“There is no exact number for determining price gouging; however, a high number of complaints can contribute to initiating investigations,” Date said.

‘The world has changed’

A message on the Cheaper Than Dirt website, which has since been taken down, said that during one week in mid-March, it received more than 10 times the normal number of orders. As the company warned customers that order processing would be delayed, it seemed to put the blame on new customers for not stocking up sooner.

“As everyone is aware, the world has changed. Preparing and ordering key supplies in advance has put you ahead of the others hoarding. We salute you for having a plan, and making the smart decision to order early,” the website read. “Those who did not plan will be too late and run into limited supplies, higher prices, and stress.”

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The complaints against the company came from across the state, from Dallas to Houston, and some were even filed by online shoppers out-of-state. Hundreds of comments filled the company’s Facebook comment sections, as shoppers posted screenshots of prices they saw as exorbitant and accused the company of exploiting customers during a crisis.

As the coronavirus pandemic first started to unfold, people turned out in droves to gun stores to stock up, wanting to make sure they were equipped for any potential civil unrest. Gun sales across the nation spiked, and the FBI conducted a record 3.7 million background checks in March — the most for a single month since the agency’s reporting system launched in 1998.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton paved the way for even more sales when on March 27 he issued a nonbinding legal opinion stating that gun stores should be considered essential businesses under any stay-at-home order.

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Texans may have been snapping up guns and ammunition like they were essential, but the law is far from straightforward. Texas price gouging law specifically mentions certain items like fuel, food and medicine, but goes on to add: “or another necessity.”

That last clause is left open to the attorney general’s office to interpret, said Michael A. Giberson, an associate professor at Texas Tech University who studies price gouging. Date, the spokeswoman for the office, said it has no official opinion at this time.

“Given the wide variety of opinions on the topic by Texans,” Giberson said, “it is not an enviable position for the Attorney General to be in.”

Giberson added that he was not aware of any lawsuits in which a judge has ruled on this topic.

‘A morality issue’

The lack of clarity hasn’t stopped complaints from streaming in.

Northwest Houston resident Rachel Williams said she had been a regular customer, but after the experience that led her to file a complaint, she doesn’t plan to shop there again.

When Williams logged on to the company’s website in mid-March, she noticed that the price for the 9mm ammunition she usually buys had doubled from about $12 to $22. In a Facebook message, the company said it was a mistake. But the next day, she checked again and the price had tripled to about $36.

“For me, that was it. I was done,” Williams said. “I understand the whole idea behind supply and demand, but to go up two, three times the amount? No. Most of us will understand and were willing to pay a couple of dollars extra, it’s not a big deal, we get the whole idea, but the trick they were using, I guess in hopes that people weren’t paying attention … to me it was deceptive.”

Another complainant, Garrett Woodruff, a competitive shooter and hunter from North Houston, said bumping up prices during a global crisis is not just bad business, it’s immoral. When the pandemic first broke out, Woodruff said he and others worried about potential looting and other unrest wanted to be prepared.

“To make someone have to pay four times the previous market price for tools to defend themselves, I just think that’s a terrible thing to do,” Woodruff said. “I understand making a profit is how this country works, but there’s a morality issue.”

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

taylor.goldenstein@chron.com