Florida Attorney General Moody in town Thursday to tout real-tme price gouging mobile app

A worst-case scenario — a hurricane is bearing down on Florida — can be made even worse by unscrupulous people trying to make a buck who inflate the price of what can be hard-to-find storm survival supplies at that time.

The state of Florida wants people to know it’s taking a hard-line stance on such price gouging, and now has a mobile application — No Scam, available on the Android and Apple platforms. It’s backed by state Attorney General Ashley Moody, who was in Osceola County on Thursday to tout it.

Users can log into the app and take pictures of stores and receipts in real time, which can be tracked and logged by state investigators.

The No Scam app is available in English and Spanish, eliminating language as a barrier to reporting price gouging.

“Help us stop this egregious act during an emergency, when everyone needs access to supplies,” Moody said, flanked by Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez. “Everyone will now have the ability to report wrong-doing regardless of language. This revolutionizes how people can do this.

“In an emergency, everyone is trying to get essential supplies. This way we can take care of illegal local price increases quickly.”

Lopez, Osceola County’s first-ever Hispanic Sheriff, was able to address Spanish-speaking media in that language, part of the reason Moody chose to come to the area this week, ahead of any potential storms, to spread the word about No Scam.

In a state of emergency, state-mandated price controls go into effect. The most popularly gouged items are water and gas, but it also covers recovery supplies like generators, tarps and lumber.

The app has already been downloaded 21,000 times, Moody reported, and a representative said it was developed “100 percent as a preventative measure” and not in response to any recent storms, like last week’s Hurricane Elsa.

Florida still has a phone hotline to report price gouging, at 866-9-NO-SCAM.