FTC and 20 States Sue Dollar General: Register Prices Higher Than Shelf Prices, Millions in Alleged Overcharges
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on October 26 that it has sued Dollar General Corporation, joined by 20 states, alleging long-running deceptive pricing practices: routinely charging customers more at the register than the prices displayed on shelves, price tags and advertisements, costing consumers millions of dollars. The states joining the lawsuit are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.
The complaint alleges that Dollar General has, for years, repeatedly mislabeled prices, overcharged consumers and failed to correct the issue despite extensive corporate knowledge of the problem. "Dollar General has betrayed the trust of millions of American consumers and imposed significant financial harm on communities and consumers who are already struggling to make their paychecks last," said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. He said the action underscores the agency's commitment to lowering costs for consumers by stopping deceptive pricing practices.
According to the complaint, thousands of Dollar General stores extracted millions of dollars in unlawful overcharges from vulnerable shoppers with insufficient safeguards to prevent the practice. The company received tens of thousands of complaints from consumers across the country who said it did not honor the advertised price, demonstrating widespread consumer harm and confirming that customers nationwide were charged more than the advertised price; the complaint says the numerous complaints show Dollar General knows its register pricing harms consumers.
Dollar General operates more than 21,000 stores nationwide and markets itself as a low-priced alternative to large discount and big-box retailers, selling thousands of low-priced household items that the FTC says are critical to its low- and fixed-income customers, who rely on the accuracy of its pricing. The claims are allegations in a complaint and remain to be decided by a court.
Source: GSM·USA
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Dollar General 门店（资料图，Connecticut 州 Enfield 一家门店）。照片：Mike Mozart 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。Photo: a Dollar General store in Enfield, Connecticut (file photo). Photo by Mike Mozart, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
