I think that it is sad that people turn to practices that will eventually destroy their business. I know people are struggling but these types of practices always catch up to you eventually. They may get away with it for a while but people will start looking for an alternative vendor and as soon as they can will dump the overcharger. I think of hard times as a character test. If your only business solution is to take advantage of someone else, well....
This reminds me of companies that provide less product for the same price, like no one is going to notice. The really sneaky ones ones keep the box size the same, just put less in. If they are really bold they add "NEW and IMPROVED" to the label. Either that or price the jumbo version of their product more expensively per unit than the smaller packages.
