How To Avoid Price Discrimination While Online Shopping

BOSTON (CBS) – Busy with three young kids, Amy Deavilla plans to do all her holiday shopping online. What the Malden mother doesn't know is that the price she sees isn't always what everyone else sees.

"Going into a store with three kids is a nightmare. Online is the only thing that I do, ever," she said.

WBZ-TV did an experiment with producers at our stations across the country. Each looked up the same items at the same time. Many times the prices were the same, but not always.

We priced a 7-foot artificial Christmas tree on HomeDepot.com with free shipping. The price in Dallas was $399. But here in Boston and in Minneapolis, the same tree was $438.

Home Depot said it can offer different prices to customers depending on their location.

We also looked up a night at an Orlando Hotel on Travelocity. The price on a laptop was $132 but it was just $119 on a mobile phone. Out of our group of six producers, two saw a price of $132 and 4 were quoted $119.

Travelocity also told us they do offer discounts to customers on mobile phones.

According to Northeastern University Professor Christo Wilson, this kind of thing is not uncommon and has been going on for a while.

"People think price discrimination is illegal. It has sort of a scary word in it, discrimination, and that's not true," he said.

Wilson and his team of researchers at Northeastern conducted a survey back in 2014. They tested 16 online retailers and travel sites. They found on nine of those sites, customers saw different results.

Wilson says companies can see your search history, what you click on, the type of computer you use, even the location where you are logged in from.

All of these things can be used to personalize a price.

"Companies are always experimenting with different strategies and algorithms," he explained. "I would not be surprised if companies are experimenting with strategies this holiday season."

So what can you do to get the best deal? Always check prices on both your laptop and our mobile phone.

You can also try to hide who and where you are by using a virtual private network or VPN. There are some you can download for free while better ones will cost you around $20.

Deavilla said she may even ask for some help researching prices for gifts this year.

"My sister lives in California; maybe they have better rates out there," she said.