The pandemic could give Colorado the chance to find out if its new consumer protections are strong enough to ward off disaster-related price gouging, Attorney General Phil Weiser said Tuesday.

The state’s chief prosecutor and the Denver-based CoPIRG Foundation are urging online retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart and Craig’s List, to crack down on third-party sellers who charge jacked up prices during a declared emergency.

“We can help by working with these platforms as cases come up, but also to encourage these platforms to be proactive to protect Coloradans who depend on their services,” Weiser told reporters in a teleconference.

Colorado, however, is one of only a handful of states that don’t have an explicit anti-price gouging law, but lawmakers last year gave the attorney general “catch-all authority” to examine and use legal remedies against what Weiser deems “unconscionable and unfair trade practices.”

“It’s possible our effort to use that authority would not be effective, and we’d need go back to the legislature to get more specific authority,” Weiser said. “My view it is unconscionable and unfair to opportunistically take advantage of someone during a public health crisis and gouge them in an extreme way.”

The Colorado Consumer Protection Act increased the potential penalty for a violation brought by the attorney general or a district attorney from $2,000 to $20,000 per violation and from $10,000 to $50,000 per violation, if committed against an elderly person.

The seller still could be subject to a private civil lawsuit, as well.

Coloradans can report abuses on the attorney general’s website, stopfraudcolorado.gov.

The bill was sponsored by Democrats, Sens. Mike Foote of Lafayette and Julie Gonzales of Denver, with Rep. Mike Weissman of Aurora.

The new law states a violator “either knowingly or recklessly engages in any unfair, unconscionable, deceptive, deliberately misleading, false or fraudulent act or practice.”

Two weeks ago, Weiser was one of 33 state attorneys general who called on Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Walmart and Craigslist to prevent price gouging on coronavirus-related products.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group Educated Fund has collected support from In the wake of the global pandemic, 340 state legislators from around the country, including 26 from Colorado, called on the large online retailers to mind their store for unscrupulous partners.

Amazon said last month it had booted hundreds of overpriced vendors involving more than 1 million products from its platform, the company said last month.

“We have also instituted additional manual audits of products in our stores due to the increased risk of price gouging from unscrupulous sellers seeking to evade our automated systems and take advantage of customers,” Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, wrote in a letter to U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

CoPIRG Foundation director Danny Katz said the request is being made to major online retailers to extend the reach.

“They’re providing an important resource,” Katz said of the large online sellers. “Especially at a time when when staying at home having things delivered, it’s an important tool. They’re playing a big role, whether you’re living in Denver or living in Lamar.

“I think it’s important that those platforms do more to identify and stop price gouging before it happens.”

The Colorado request was signed by Reps. KC Becker, Yadira Caraveo, James Coleman, Lisa Cutter Meg Froelich, Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, Leslie Herod, Edie Hooton, Dominique Jackson, Sonya Jaquez Lewis, Chris Kennedy, Cathy Kipp, Susan Lontine, Dylan Roberts, Emily Sirota, Matt Soper, Brianna Titone and Mike Weissman.

The plea was also signed by Sens. Steve Fenberg, Jessie Danielson, Mike Foote, Pete Lee, Ray Scott, Tammy Story, Faith Winter and Rachel Zenzinger.