The American consumer is no stranger to excessive markups. Gluttonous retailers are taking advantage of the situation the auto industry finds itself in, placing market adjustments atop the MSRP of new vehicles. We've seen some fairly shocking examples of this, with one Ford dealer recently asking as much as $145,000 for an F-150 Lightning.

This undesirable practice seems to be spreading to Australia, where Blue Oval retailers are charging outrageous delivery fees for popular products such as the new Ford Ranger. As per the Australian publication Drive, most Ford dealerships charge between AU$1,200 and AU$1,900 (U$850 - U$1,350) for the delivery fee but some customers are facing notably higher fees.

Would-be Ranger owners are facing delivery charges as high as AU$3,000 to AU$6,000 (U$2,100 - U$4,200); considerably more than the going rate. Dealers have defended this behavior, citing the effects of the chip shortage and supply chain issues.

Stateside, Ford hasn't taken kindly to price gouging and has warned dealers their greedy tactics won't get them very far. In fact, Ford's head of sales has weighed in on the matter, telling retailers their F-150 Lightning allocation will be impacted by unethical practices. Despite the stern warning, it hasn't seemed to work, forcing the Blue Oval to implement tighter restrictions.

This stance hasn't been adopted by Ford Australia, which made no mention of issuing any warnings. A company spokesperson saidthat delivery fees are set by dealers. "We are keen to remind customers that we have more than 180 dealers nationwide and they are welcome to work with a dealer of their choice."

Ford Australia also declined to comment on whether it plans to emulate its American counterpart by restricting vehicle allocation to money-hungry retailers. One anonymous dealer simply told the publication "you can skin a sheep once, but you can shear it a hundred times."

Some may wonder why Ford Australia doesn't just standardize the dealer delivery fees. However, this could be seen as anti-competitive behavior by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, one of the country's leading consumer and business groups.

In the broader scheme of things, the markups facing our Australian counterparts pale in comparison to the exorbitant premiums placed upon vehicles in the USA; we've seen a Kia EV6 selling for $87,000. If this continues, more and more people will advocate for the widespread adoption of the direct sales model currently used by Tesla.

We're not surprised that the new Ranger is embroiled in this unfortunate markup malarkey. It's set to be the consummate vehicle in its segment and, when it arrives in the United States, we expect it to rewrite the rule book on mid-sized trucks.